Rant: Why I don't go to the movie theatres
Tim O'Reilly just posted a link to an interesting article on the O'Reilly Radar blog. According to the article, movie theatre revenues are hurting. People are becoming much more inclined to rent movies and watch them at home than they are to go to a theatre. High ticket prices and the availability of high quality home-theatres for reasonable prices have contributed to this, but another less obvious factor is the glut of advertising that comes with going to a movie theatre.
I tend to agree with this sentiment. Over the last five years I've seen an average of one film in the theatre each year, and each one has left me feeling ripped off.
When arriving at a theatre, the first reminder of where I am is always the sticker shock. $12 for admission, $5 for popcorn, $5 for a drink, and let's not even get started about the price of parking downtown. For that kind of change, two people could go out for dinner and still have money left over to rent a DVD. But what really gets to me is the endless stream of ads.
In the theatre, the advertisements have already started before anyone is in their seats. While people are filing in, there is usually some sort of a slide show advertising soft drinks with the occasional slide of uninteresting trivia on a second-rate actor. These ads are not so bad as they can be ignored easily enough; the only music playing is there as background, and the house lights are still on. While waiting through these you can still talk to your friends or read a magazine while waiting for them to return with their $5 popcorn.
Once everyone has found their seats and is a fully captive audience (usually well past the actual start time for the film), the lights dim and everyone goes silent, anticipating the start of something. Instead of a film though, you first have to sit through a good ten minutes of ads. These ads are nothing special; they're the same ads you see everyday on television, only here presented on a big screen with big sound -- is this the true movie theatre experience? Since it is now dark it is virtually impossible to look away from the commercials. You are forced to sit and become immersed in them.
Whoever thought of playing ads before a film like this is one of the most brilliant advertising geniuses of all time, and should be shot. The audience is completely captive; while the commercials are playing it is impossible to look away or even to hold a discussion with another person due to their size and volume. Unlike television where you can mute the sound, change the channel (usually to find more ads), or leave the room for a bit, there is nothing that can be done to avoid these ads. Good luck getting up and waiting in the lobby for the ads to end; you'll never find your seat in the dark in time for the film to start.
Now, I could at least accept these ads if they were presented to me in exchange for something else. Commercials on broadcast television and radio pay for the programming. Newspaper advertisements pay for most of the paper. I think it's reasonable that they're present to help cover costs and allow the media to make a profit, as annoying as they are. Commercials in movie theatres don't seem to follow along these lines though. As the number of ads has increased over the past years, I certainly haven't seen the ticket price decrease. In fact, quite the opposite of that has happened.
All of this leaves me feeling like I've been taken advantage of when I go to a movie. I've paid my money, and once I'm completely trapped I'm forced to watch advertisements instead of just the film that I've already paid a significant amount of money to see. I almost have visions of some greasy advertising executive sitting up in the projection booth, laughing how they've trapped the suckers sitting below and how much "mindshare" they've aquired by doing this.
Fortunately there is a very easy solution to avoiding all of this advertising: Simply put, it is avoiding going to movie theatres. With the high price of movie tickets and the questionable quality of most film shown, the incentive to do this is even higher. Personally, I'm much happier watching a film that's a few months old at home. Even without a state-of-the-art home theatre, I'm much happier sitting on my blue couch, having a beer and enjoying the show on my own terms. And judging by the article, I'm not the only one.
posted by Carl @ 8:43 a.m.
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