The drastic decline of moviegoers is a major concern for the film industry. It's quite shocking that so few people watch movies in theaters anymore. To put it in perspective, Jay Epstein mentioned that "in 1948, 65%, (90 million Americans) of the population watched movies compared to only 10 percent of today's population (30 million Americans)"(Epstein 1). The box office in 2005 has significantly declined in the third quarter by about 7% compared to 2004 and by about 10% in admissions (CNN Entertainment 1). Even though people still watched big budget films like Spiderman 2 and Star Wars, films don't seem to draw people into the theaters anymore.
The increase in movie ticket and concession prices turned many away from the cinema. The
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Adding to the already competitive entertainment market is the invention of online music and peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as Napster, Limewire, and Itunes. The teenage market, which contributes a majority of the entertainment income, can use programs like Napster to download movies and games to entertain themselves at little or no cost, so paying $9 to watch a movie becomes even less attractive when you can "watch it for free."
It appears that the answer to the box office decline is rather simple. Couldn't the film industries make films cheaper, improve the quality of their movies to please the audience, and lower the ticket prices? The problem is that it's not really possible to meet any of those demands considering what it takes to make a film.
Some complaints about films are that they aren't of the same quality as the ones in the past. On a technical standpoint, there's no truth in this statement. During the onset of theater, films were simple $400 to $500 productions made by people in vaudeville to go along with acts. Even blockbusters of the 1960s and 70s like Dr. Dolittle couldn't dream of using the technology we use today. The special effects of Dr. Dolittle peaked out at the invention of a clay snail. Nowadays we have the addition of digital-quality sound, color, computer-generated graphics, and voice actors (Wasko 5). In the past, people were glad just to watch a
Modern technology isn't disappearing and the need for movie theaters will continuously decline. If movie theater owners take the time to examine several of these options they will certainly find one that functions for them and begin to earn a revenue that is truly theirs.
By the 1960s the studio system was all but over. Many cinemas were closed down and several of the production back lots sold. Society had changed dramatically particularly with the rise of youth and the youth market, and the old Hollywood product seemed stale to the rising youth audience. Times were changing and the industry had to change with it. The studio system had declined rapidly in the 1950s and by the late 1960s was all but over. The audience had segmented into different social groups with increased leisure options rather than the mass habit audience of the golden age. Many of the films the studios produced to compete with television seemed to many people old fashioned and part of a different world which led to a significant drop in
Occasionally, people use to go out and rent DVD’s to watch a specific movie from rental stores. Advancement in technology has brought a sufficient change in customer’s behaviors, today DVD rental stores have almost gone. Moreover, by time we saw enormous increase in channels being provided by cable providers, but today even that has been replaced by streaming media devices, thus my time, role of cable providers might also disappear due to the introduction of devices such as Netflix, Apple TV etc. “DVD sales have also been hit. The Los Angeles-based Digital Entertainment Group estimates DVD sales in 2008 fell 8% to $21.6 billion from a year earlier, while DVD rentals were flat.” Charny, Ben. "Viewers Tap Free Web Content." Wall Street Journal, Eastern
Movie marketing is a tricky thing. A movie could be a complete disaster, but if the marketing is done right, the movie will do well. If the movie a delightful, but the marketing is done badly, the movie could bomb and cost the studio a lot of money. I’ve seen it happen a lot over the years. Remember that movie John Carter? That movie cost a LOT of money to produce. I saw the movie since I already read the books and knew from what I saw that it was going to be a fun film to watch, but from a marketing standpoint, and having been a marketing major in college, I knew the movie was going to bomb. Why? No one knew what the hell it was about or who the hell John Carter was.
The poor distribution of Australian films has made it difficult for the public to view these said films, due to the lack of theatres screening the actual pictures. This contributes to the community of the Australian public to collectively be unaware of these films and leads to the small number of tickets sold in cinemas. With this lack of money being spent on Australian films, the industry suffers due to with no return going into the
Concession sales and ticket sales are the two biggest sources of revenue for a movie theater but the exhibitors has limited control over both revenues and profits because those two are important aspects. Attendance allows for profitable sales of concessions and advertisements, but there are significant caps on the volume of concession sales per person, and selling price seem to have reached a maximum. Both continue to increase in cost to the consumers and may have reached a price point that is starting to drive consumers away from going to see a movie.
So, now the question of how they could entertain without offending anyone come into play. Films from this period have been named the "Cinema of attractions" by film scholar Tom Gunning, in part, because they treat show over narrative. The popularity of film in its first decade was for some, a cause for concern. It faced challenges to produce longer pictures, which not only would advance their profitability, but also needed to be narrative, which in turn allowed films to carry ethical and good messages.
Throughout my life I have repeatedly heard everyone around me say “Change is for the better”, a generic phrase that gives false hope to something that does not have a clear answer. The truth is that change can be both good and bad depending on the situation. Hollywood is currently in the process of a major change as it keeps branching further and further away from what it once was. As the popularity of movies continues to rise, the boundaries of what is possible in the movie industry are becoming limitless. With the help of modern technology, Hollywood has turned its attention to how well they can make a movie look, rather than the actual acting itself.
In the mid 1970’s the movie industry seemed to have a huge recovery with the
Moviegoers have different options to choose. Most of them are price sensitive and looks for a movie theater, which is matched with their budget and their time, to watch a movie. they have some other options such as streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and HBO which offer different movies and people can see movies wherever internet is available. If somebody wants to see a new film when it is released, they have to go to a movie theater to watch them.
Technology makes it easier to watch movies on the couch, and studios are releasing movies to cable customers on the premiere days. Members of the movie going demographic
Ticket sales for movie theaters are at their lowest point since 1996. With the core demographic group expected to grow slower than the US population and with technological advances growing at speeds faster than the industry can keep up, ticket sales will continue to decline if the current business strategy continues to be followed.
The competitive forces in the movie rental industry are quite strong, as I will explain through the five forces model. There are a vast amount of substitutes for watching a movie. You can go to a play, sporting event, concert, out the lake/beach, go for a run, watch regular television, go shopping; I could go on and on. Also, torrenting or pirating movies is growing increasingly popular. Buyers have a strong presence in this industry mainly because they are picky about how much they will pay to rent or stream a movie. With the amount of substitutes and their pickiness, they make this
stopping the movie whereas one does not have that choice in the theater. Movie theaters make it more
Before the advent of movie rental stores, to watch a new movie, people had to go to theatres or cinemas spending a lot of money. Video rental was the answer to the new needs. Since the 90s, video rental industry has become a very big business; in those years, rental prices rose as more and more people began renting movies. At the same time, new players entered the market creating strong competition inside the industry. In the last years, the field of home entertainment has changed dramatically because of the presence of Internet and new technologies (Recorded DVD & Video in the United States, 2009).