Ads in front of movies..... (MERGED THREAD) (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

Try this question Glenn: “What time does the feature start?”

 

[LanieParker]

When I go to a movie I usually show up about 20 minutes prior to showtime to get a good seat. A good seat to me is an aisle seat about half way up. Before the whole commercial thing started I didn't mind the silent ads they showed while playing soft music in the background. I would either read a book or magazine or play the alphabet game ( finding all the letters of the alphabet in each ad).

My big problem, as others have mentioned here, is getting there early enough to get a good seat and still trying to avoid those awful commercials. Doesn't always work.

Oh yeah and my other big complaint is when a theater employee comes in and askes me to scoot over so someone who came in late can have a seat.... I got here early to get this particular seat, so make them sit in the middle. I usually avoid first screenings so as not to deal with this, however, I have had this happen during a movie that wasn't a first screening.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Lew - when they get done with the commercials and the trailers? At 7:30 in the first case, but 7 in the latter, because their 3 hour boock started at 6:30..

Either way it takes up a 3 hour block. If you get there 30 minutes late though (when the movie starts up), you might forfeit your seat.

Glenn

 

[Lew Crippen]

I mostly go on weekend matinees and don’t often have to worry about arriving early in order to get a good seat. For the few blockbusters that I go to early in their release cycle, I’m not willing to arrive early enough to get my preferred seating in any case (commercials or no), so I just sit elsewhere.

And since my wife and I probably are at the art houses 70% of the time, I don’t usually find the amount of commercials to be overwhelming.

None of this means that I like commercials—just that they don’t impact me very much in theaters.

 

[JonZ]

When I saw Collateral this weekend, there must have been 10 minutes of advertisments before the trailers.

I have to watch commercials at home, I dont want to see them at theaters too.

IMHO, If they have to put advertisements before trailers, they should start them 10 minutes before the start time of the film.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

This is an issue where perception and reality collide. When you pay the $10 to see a movie, in your mind you are paying for the experience of seeing it in a nice auditorium with a great sound system, etc.

In reality, Hollywood thinks that you're paying for the right to see the movie at all. They generally don't care where you are watching it, whether it has a nice sound system, or whether it has ushers to keep people off their cell phones, etc. The vast majority of that $10 goes directly to Hollywood and the theater sees none of it. The people collecting money at the ticket counters might as well be paid by Hollywood.

Now I realize that the above is a generalization, and that as a movie plays longer in the theater the theater can get a bigger cut of the box office. But generally speaking, most of the box office goes to Hollywood and not towards the sound system, janitors to keep the floor clean, ushers, etc.

So theaters need to make some sort of revenue to stay in business. You may think that your $10 should be enough, but that's not reality. You can argue that theaters should simply charge more (like $12), but that is problematic for a couple of reasons: 1) most people would rather go to the cheaper theater that only charges $10, and 2) I'm not sure if it would work anyway since I think that the agreement is for a percentage of the box office, and not for a fixed amount (i.e. that Hollywood would get most of the $12 rather than letting the theater keep the extra $2, but I could be wrong on this account).

Most of the things that you enjoy in a theater are financed by soda, popcorn sales, and advertising, although they sometimes make additional money renting out their auditoriums for business meetings, etc. Don't blame the theaters - it's a market reality. The power company isn't going to charge them less for electricty and the city won't forgo their property taxes on account of being movie lovers.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

We get the ads before and after the supposed time of the start of the movie and yes, The 20 is loud and intrusive and it goes over and over and over and after it is all done we get a review of what we have just watched. FUN!

 

[AaronMK]

Wouldn't it be rediculous if what you paid for at the supermarket was just for the right to eat the food, or what you were paying for at a concert was just the right to see the band, or what I was paying for at an electronics store was just the right to use the product?

It does not seem that Hollywood realizes that they would not be able to get their product to consumers and make money from it if it were not for the theaters giving them outlets all over the world. A food store gets to keep its fair share of the sale price because they provide a service to Kraft by providing a convenient way for consumers to consume their products, and so should a movie theater for the same service.

I don't feel that Hollywood thinking that they owe nothing to the theaters for their services is a good reason to have loud intrusive ads shoved down my throat.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

Aaron, I agree with your sentiment just as long as you aim your anger at Hollywood for creating the current pricing structure and not at the movie theaters themselves for being forced to produce revenue via selling adds.

 

[Malcolm R]

Definitely. And as I've said before, if theater owners would band together union-like and collectively demand more equitable terms for sharing the box office receipts, they wouldn't have to worry about "making up revenue." But as long as there's a handful of theaters out there willing to live with the current terms, nothing will change.

So I do think the theater owners are to blame for letting themselves be taken advantage of. It's a situation of their own making. The studios say "bend over," the theater owners say "how far" then fix them a nice breakfast when the studios are done having their way with them.

 

[MikeAB]

Even if theatre owners were given a better deal with box office receipts, what's to stop them from keep showing ads. I doubt many people who are borderline about seeing a movie decide to pass because they don't want to see ads. Ads or not, the number of people who go to the movies won't be affected greatly. So essentially, ads are free revenue for the theatres, unless they are showing enough that they lose a showtime.

I for one, as a very punctual person, absolutely despise getting to a movie ten minutes early and sitting in my seat for 20-30 minutes after the scheduled start just to watch commercials. I personally would pay an extra buck or two if the theatre promised me that the movie would start at the proper time. However, I'm definetly in the minority of the movie-going audience. Ads are here to stay, unless theatres decide capitalism and making money isn't the way to go.

 

[AaronMK]

Yes, my discontent is directed towards Hollywood for creating the situation.


Since the ads at theaters have become so loud an intrusive, I have cut down my theater going by about a 1/3. It is not in protest. It is just that deciding to go to the theaters is a decision on whether seeing a particular movie is worth going through the inconveniences required. Add feeling like a captive audience for twenty minutes into those inconveniences, and that is just how many movies it causes to not be worth the trouble.

So for each movie, that is $8.75 that the studio loses because they won't give the theater the $1.00 they might get paid to show a single person ads at a screening.

I know many others who also go to the theaters less because the ads have become so prevelent and intrusive, and if I'm not mistaken, box office receipts have gone down in general. Maybe this is a reason why.

How is that for thinking about it in terms of making money?

 

[DeathStar1]

How bad has it gotten since Episode 2 was released?

I remember even back then, that people where getting INCREDIBLY restless at the 6 or so minutes of commercials that they had to sit through, and I havn't been back to a theater since.

If it's gotten worse, I only hope that they start BOOING the commercials this time around so they get skipped all together..

How long are commercials in front of movies now, and when should I get there? For instance, if it's advertised at 4:30, should I get there at 4:40? Or should I just bring a GBSP with earphones as a backup?

 

[JonZ]

...

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

It depends on where you go as some chains have longer commercial time than others. Some also start the commercials earlier, so that the trailers hit the screen at the start time. Some chains don't show *any* commercials, so you are best off checking before you go if avoiding them is a priority.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Because of concerns like this (and others), I spent a week going to a different theater every day, trying to see different types of movies and at different times, so I could do some measurements.

Among other items I noted the advertised start time and the actual time the feature began, and counted the type and number of non-feature items. You can find the results of my week at the movies here.

In short, I did not see very many actual ads, though most theaters had some type of internal promotion. I did not find the time excessive.

FWIW, I saw three movies today, and none of them had any ads, nor was the wait time very long. One movie had no non-feature items at all, not even a trailer.

 

[Allen Hirsch]

I just experienced this. Good from a time standpoint, baffling from a content standpoint.

What we saw: TWO TV series ads, and an X-Box game ad. Now, if I'm a movie theater owner, am I so desperate for ad $$ that I'll promote my stay-at-home entertainment competition right before my feature? Isn't that terribly counterproductive, if in fact the advertising is effective???

 

[ThomasC]

I guess they don't care where the money comes from, they just want the money.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

No more than playing a PSA that lectures about movie piracy to an audience that has just paid a chunk of change to see a movie.

 

[Lew Crippen]

To add a bit, during the Oscar season, theaters I attend frequently ran TCM ads. TCM was promoting a month of Oscar winning and nominated films.

But this seems to be the model. Both TV and radio for years have accepted ads for movies, obviously entertainment competetion for them.

Think of the major companies who have holdings in multiple types of entertainment. Both Viacom and Time-Warner have TV networks and movie companies. It is only natural that they would advertise across all their companies--after all they win both ways.

And even individuals like Mark Cuban own theater chains and TV outlets (HDNET). Cuban has gone so far as to release a film to the theaters on the same day as it was telecast on HDNET.