 The rapid rise in the price of silver (essential to black-and-white film processing) caused home-movie retail prices to skyrocket, and many collectors abandoned film in favor of then-new home video.Lee Enterprises' decision to emphasize mail-order sales instead of a unique product line, and heavy investments in the Betamax and CED (RCA's mechanical video disc) formats, proved very costly.Lee Enterprises sold the company to its Blackhawk management team, who continued until 1983 when National Telefilm Associates (later renamed Republic Pictures) bought the company.