In light of the recent Oscar's - I thought I'd rant a little bit about Movies and Prices. Being in the "advertising industry," I am quite passionate about the value commercial promotion brings to us consumers. Often scorned, commercials provide the ability for content to be created and viewed by masses, with limited investment to the end consumer... Television, Newspapers, Magazines, and the Internet -- all are highly subsidized by various companies that chose to market their products to us. Instead of a "thank you," the average consumer (myself included) fast-forwards television commercials, purposely prevent internet ads from popping up on your screen, etc.
Why am I telling you this? Well, because on all of those other mediums - the companies that bring that content to the end user - almost always pass along the savings to the consumer... Well, in case you are in an exclusive relationship with NETFLIX and haven't been to the movies in the past 2 years - the cinema has decided to take a stand and be the first to put the added profits into their own pockets...
Literally 30 minutes of "commercials" are shown before the lights finally get completely dark so that you can watch the feature presentation. 15 minutes of standard commercials followed by 4-7 previews. (In case anyone doesn't know me - I detest previews - they give away the whole movie...but more on that in a different entry) Anyhow, I would not have a problem with seeing all these ads IF my movie prices were going down instead of up. $10.50 for a movie here in NYC - And that does not include if you buy in advance - which, by the way, I really don't understand why they charge for this...When you buy plane tickets or event tickets early - don't they usually give you a discount?
Anyhow - to sum up my beef - movie theaters should either chose to show less commercials or lower prices....The only way I see that happening is if there is some competition. On Demand or straight to DVD never released movies?????? Yea - don't see that happening. Any other ideas?
3 comments:
Why would they lower prices if more and more people keep piling into theaters despite increased commercial time and higher ticket prices. Until movies go straight to On Demand (a long way off), the best way to fight this, unfortunately, is through increased piracy. With digital technology, it's getting a lot easier to make high-quality copies of new movies - the only thing needed is a better gray market distribution system. This is what software companies are doing in Asia - lowering prices in order to combat rampant piracy.
I've got no probelm with them showing me commercials in the theater as long as the movie starts on time. They advertise the movie for 8pm, but the commercials start at 8pm. If they want to show commercials to 7:59:59, go ahead, just don't tell me the movie begins at 8pm when it really starts at like 8:15pm. Movies in NYC are expensive, but there are very few movies a year that I need to see right when they come out causing me to use Fandango or Moviefone. Tickemaster charges a much larger commision to use their service. After all the services fees of a recent show I went to a $26 ticket ended up costing $41. Through workingadvantage.com and other corporate discounts, I suggest buying discount movie passes. They are like $6 a ticket instead of $10.50.
Felch
Felch is a cheap Jew
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