I have been following the industry for over 25 years reading Screen International, Variety and Hollywood Reporter weekly for most of those years and worked with it for many of those years.

Vue CEO Tim Richards comment about the ticket pricing not being the problem of the drop in cinema admissions was obvious and shows how in denial exhibitors are with the issues facing the industry.

How he can possibly say people will pay virtually anything to see a film they really want to see is complete nonsense if that was the case audience figures would be far higher than they are today. Many times I’ve been looking at seeing a film at my local Vue and got through to the booking page only to realise that it was going to cost me almost £20 to see the film and I decided I can wait 3 months to watch it at home. 20 years ago I would go to the cinema on average at least once a week now it’s less than once a month. I’m sure many people are like me unless they have a Cineworld Unlimited card. Why don’t other chains offer similar schemes?
Odeon instead have added £1 for blockbuster releases starting with interstellar, The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 and upcoming The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

His comment was similar to CEA Chief Executive Phil Clapp who told The Daily Telegraph in a recent article said cinemas had made “unprecedented investments” in recent years, spending over £200m in converting old 35mm film projectors to new digital equipment and pointed out that a trip to the cinema was cheaper than an equivalent night out at a West End theatre. (I know live theatre is now screened in cinemas but there is no way you can compare seeing The Lion King live in a theatre and The Lion King in a cinema?)

It just amazes me when people like Vue CEO Tim Richards and CEA Chief Executive Phil Clapp and Chief Executive, Film Distributors’ Association Mark Batey come out with these comments and excuses. As they are the same ones said year after year always trying to excuse the failures but not saying or facing the real causes of why the industry is in the position it is in.

The conversion from film to digital was meant save money for both exhibitors and distributors and those saving expected to see ticket prices drop instead exhibitors have used it as an excuse to raise ticket prices by 27% in the last 5 years alone. Has Digital Cinema made the cinema experience better for audiences not to my knowledge? The only winners have been the exhibitor and distributors as Digital Cinema has killed the cinema experience and removed its soul. The picture quality might be better but it doesn’t feel like cinema anymore it just feels like we are watching a big TV screen.

There is also the fact that the technology behind Digital Cinema needs to be updated much more regularly than 35mm film did. With film once the projector was installed they were regularly serviced that was it. With Digital Cinema there as much bigger costs and regularly software and hardware updates that need replacing within a few years and there will be that question each time that will pay for it.

As DCM came out with an equally crazy comment that an increasing number of people are paying a visit to the cinema. With the total number of people going to the cinema grow by 24%. I’m sure there are a small proportion of people who go to the cinema regular but the vast majority of people who go occasionally have dropped. Some have come back due to Event Cinema offering them something different.

Cinema prices have gone up more than 2133% in the last 40 years only being beaten by The Daily Mail and cigarettes (which have 87% tax). How can cinemas justify the cost of a cinema ticket especially as they always say they barely make any money from it? Cinemas make more profit from popcorn 900% than they do on cinema tickets. So if exhibitors make more money on popcorn and soft drink sales if they were to reduce ticket prices more people would come to the cinema and that would mean more popcorn and soft drink sales and bigger profits for exhibitors?

In 1994 after Jurassic Park took £46m at the box office experts were predicting that by 2000 UK cinema admissions would be over 200m but instead they haven’t seen the dramatic increase in the last 15 years as was seen back then. Many would say the quality of films has improved so why aren’t audiences growing?

Exhibitors always come out with the same excuses blaming the films. Each year the studio slates look very impressive and this time last year DCM and others were saying 2014 will be a massive year at the cinema. Why it is 20th Century Fox got it so right with their slate which had a mix of all kinds of genres but other studios didn’t.

These aren’t knee jerk reactions this problem goes back many years. Since 2009 box office has been artificially inflated by 3D box office surcharges without which would have seen the box office dropping.
I have to also question how admissions are calculated are they by using the CEA estimated average ticket price of £6.52 (that figure includes EE Wednesday and child & OAP discounts so the average price is much more likely £9). Which would mean the annual admission figures are much lower than the CEA claim?
If UK admissions don’t sky rocket to over 200m with box office of £1.5+ billion in 2015 exhibitors have nowhere to hide as everyone is talking up next year as the biggest year ever.

A lot of organisations and industry “experts” seem to not notice the problems that are affecting the industry as the big box office opening can easily hide the issues. People seem to be caught up with the hype surrounding films but rarely does that hype live up to the film and with social media negative word of mouth now spreads on Friday night when it used to be the following weekend.

You look at the weekend openings films get this has become critical of a film’s success, it used to be a film would take 6+times a film’s opening now it’s about 3 times and a film is lucky if it stays in the top 10 for more than a month. With marketing costs rising and box office dropping but more films than ever being released the market in cannibalizing with films rarely meeting expectations

This year should have been the wakeup call for exhibitors but they have had the surprise get out of jail card Paddington which will probably stop 2014 becoming the worst year for cinema admissions since 2001.
Exhibitors can’t always look to next year and think all the problems and issues will be fixed as they always seem to do always putting the blame on the films the distributors spend billions making and marketing.