Movie Theater Attendance Is An Issue So Let's Show More Ads
Aishvarya Kavi
Even after a nice run of popular movies recently, the overall trend continues: movies theaters are struggling to get butts in seats. There are a number of reasons for this and no easy solution. But I can tell you what one of those solutions is not:
But starting in July, AMC will join its major competitors in running even more commercials before movie screenings begin, in an effort to increase revenue without hiking ticket prices as the industry struggles.
The movie theater chain has struck a deal with the cinema advertising company National CineMedia to play commercials in what is known as the “platinum spot” — right before the start of a movie.
Yes, the largest theater chain just added some major new math to the equation which already increasingly was not in their favor. Pop quiz, hot shot: you can either pay a lot of money and deal with the logistics of going to a movie theater to see a film after you sit through a ton of ads, or you can stay at home and pay a lot less money to see a movie without having to sit through any ads.1
What do you do? What do you do?!
To be fair to AMC, they were a holdout against such ads for the past five years even as most of their peers – Regal, Cinemark, etc – jumped on board for the quick bucks. Still, so much for that "strongly worded statement" against the move they issued at the time, warning that it would further ruin the movie-going experience.
In a statement on Wednesday, AMC suggested it was prepared to receive some backlash. But at a time when movie theaters are struggling to get Americans to start going to the movies again, AMC noted that the decision would not make it any more expensive for customers.
“For the past five years, AMC has sought out crucial revenue that is not reliant on the increase of base ticket prices,” the company said in the statement. Of the new advertisements, it added that “while AMC was initially reluctant to bring this to our theaters, our competitors have fully participated for more than five years without any direct impact to their attendance.”
My next pop quiz to AMC: if all your friends jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?
So how many ads are we talking about here? It sounds like 20 to 30 minutes worth. Or perhaps more because actually, there are already ads being run, this is just in that "platinum spot" right before the movie starts so you're more likely to be stuck in your seat, eyes glued to the screen. I know this spot well because I live in the UK where such ads have been commonplace for a long while. And it sucks.2
You show up for a movie on time and oftentimes said movie doesn't actually start until 45 minutes after said time. It's ridiculous, but you can, of course, try to plan around it by just showing up later. The problem there is that you don't know exactly how big the pre-movie ad roll will be. And more generally, this just ads a lot of time when it comes to planning for the movie. If you're going to a 2 hour movie that starts at 7, you think you can hire a babysitter until perhaps 9:30 to factor in commute time, etc. But if the movie actually doesn't start until 7:45 because of these ads, you're looking at more like a 9:45 end time, still with that commute home. I deal with this constantly. It's never not annoying.
And these ads don't even bring in that much extra money for the theaters because they have to split the proceeds with the partner, in this case National CineMedia. Nickel-and-diming your literal audience always works well though.3
Next up: mid-roll ads in movies. I'm kidding but I'm also not. You know someone is going to try it at some point. And the theaters will fully be the "We're all trying to find the guy who did this" meme as home viewing rises while theater attendance keeps on falling.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 Yes, yes I recognize that there are an increasing number of streaming services with packages that show ads. But what I'm mainly think about here are the SVOD options where you pay, say, $9.99 or even $19.99 for the whole family to watch a new movie. With no ads.
2 Even though I find British ads to be slightly more watchable than US ads.
3 I'm sure Ted Sarandos is loving this though.