Cinema Attendance Research Articles

Drie mogelijke verklaringen voor de stagnerende ontwikkeling van het Nederlandse bioscoopbedrijf in de jaren dertig

This paper is a contribution to the debate concerning the factors affecting film-going in the Netherlands in the 1930s. We start with an analysis of the nature of the Dutch cinema market by comparing it to the Anglo-Saxon model of film distribution and showing. We then examine the evidence concerning the part played by high prices, religion and social class. In doing this we model the impact of prices on film-going in the Dutch and British markets and produce evidence to suggest that as much as 80 per cent of the difference in cinema attendance between the two countries can be explained by that fact that much higher prices were being charged in the Netherlands. We also show that the presence of Protestants correlated negatively with cinema provisions (low number of cinema seats per capita) whereas the presence of wealthy tax-payers correlated positively with the number of cinema seats.

Movies and TV Influence Tobacco Use in India: Findings from a National Survey

BackgroundExposure to mass media may impact the use of tobacco, a major source of illness and death in India. The objective is to test the association of self-reported tobacco smoking and chewing with frequency of use of four types of mass media: newspapers, radio, television, and movies.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe analyzed data from a sex-stratified nationally-representative cross-sectional survey of 123,768 women and 74,068 men in India. All models controlled for wealth, education, caste, occupation, urbanicity, religion, marital status, and age. In fully-adjusted models, monthly cinema attendance is associated with increased smoking among women (relative risk [RR]: 1·55; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1·04–2·31) and men (RR: 1·17; 95% CI: 1·12–1·23) and increased tobacco chewing among men (RR: 1·15; 95% CI: 1·11–1·20). Daily television and radio use is associated with higher likelihood of tobacco chewing among men and women, while daily newspaper use is related to lower likelihood of tobacco chewing among women.Conclusion/SignificanceIn India, exposure to visual mass media may contribute to increased tobacco consumption in men and women, while newspaper use may suppress the use of tobacco chewing in women. Future studies should investigate the role that different types of media content and media play in influencing other health behaviors.

Cinema attendance in Europe

Although there exists a large body of literature which has empirically investigated the impact of various determinants on cinema attendance, studies that analyse the addictive component of cinema consumption seem to be relatively rare. The aim of this article is to empirically investigate the addictive component of cinema consumption by adopting a cross-country focus. To this aim, the Becker and Murphy's rational addiction model has been tested using a pooled cross-section and time-series data on 12 European countries over the period 1989 to 2004. Results provide evidence that cinema consumption seems to conform to a rational addiction hypothesis.

Le cinéma est-il devenu un loisir de luxe ? Une étude économétrique de la demande Française

Cet article analyse la demande française de films en salle entre 1975 et 2004. L’article étudie le rôle de chacune de ces variables explicatives dans cette évolution (prix des places, revenu des consommateurs, concurrence du petit écran et de la vidéo), et mesure la sensibilité de la demande de cinéma à leurs variations de court et long terme. L’élasticité-prix obtenue montre que le cinéma est relativement proche des « higher performing arts » de Throsby [1994]. Les élasticité-revenu du modèle viennent confirmer ce point de vue, puisqu’elles classent le cinéma parmi les biens de luxe. Pour ce qui est de l’impact de la télévision et de la vidéo, les résultats significatifs à long terme confortent leur impact négatif sur la consommation de films en salle. Regarder un film à la télévision ou avec la vidéo est devenu, semble-t-il, un moyen plus populaire que d’aller le voir dans les salles de cinéma. Le cinéma serait devenu un bien de luxe, perdant le statut de bien « forain » puis populaire qui fut jusqu’ici son apanage.

Spectacles of Conspicuous Consumption: Picture Palaces, War Profiteers and the Social Dynamics of Moviegoing in the Netherlands, 1914–1922

This article examines the sharp increase in cinema attendance in the Netherlands during the First World War and its long-term impact on Dutch film culture. The authors argue that a rise in youth wages, a coal shortage that forced people to look for entertainment outside the private sphere, and the emergence of a new upwardly mobile class of nouveau riches which had made their fortune with war profiteering, were responsible for the sudden popularity of the cinema in the Netherlands. Rather than a drive for respectability on the part of cinema owners, it was this growth in demand that accounts for the construction of picture palaces, which were partly financed by war profiteers. Because of their association with war profiteers and nouveau riche taste, picture palaces were criticized and shunned by the nation's cultural elite and vested middle classes, who continued to see the cinema as a fairground entertainment. Hence, in contrast with developments elsewhere in Europe and in the United States, the emergence of picture palaces in the Netherlands did not facilitate but rather hampered cinema's integration into the cultural mainstream.

Kommunikative Reichweiten. Ein Beitrag zur perzeptiven Dialektologie am Beispiel des Films „Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot“

In the first part of the article, the existence of an area of perceptual dialectology that has to date received little theoretical recognition or empirical investigation is acknowledged, namely the exploration of the communicative range of linguistic features and varieties. Although closely enmeshed, geographical and social range can be differentiated at the level of theory. In the second part, making use of a map that records the cinema attendance figures for a film, the extent of the range of the central Bavarian variety spoken in the film will be established. The map does not display a steady decline in acceptance radiating out from a central point, but instead reveals several unusual features for which an explanation is offered.

Analyzing consumers heterogeneity and self-reported tastes: An approach consistent with the consumer’s decision making process

This paper analyses whether self-reported valuation of goods is an adequate proxy for underlying tastes. In this case, different self-reported appraisals, which we can associate with different utility functions, would imply different demand curves. To estimate these kinds of relationships we have used data on reported tastes on new film releases and cinema attendance. We have used a latent class approach in order to imitate the data generating process underlying the demand functions, where consumer’s preferences are determined before consumers purchase. With this procedure we can reject the hypothesis of a unique demand function for all consumers. As expected, moreover, prices have a different influence depending on individuals’ self-reported tastes and specific market policies for each consumer group could therefore be designed.

Limit of Maps? Locality and Cinema-Going in Australia

Cinema-going is a cultural experience shaped by logistics and mobility, as film distributors and exhibitors operate to enable films to be screened in places and at times when audiences can physically assemble to view them together. A historical understanding of the geography of cinema distribution, exhibition and attendance can therefore help us to understand what factors other than the choice of film title may have shaped the experience of the cinema audience. This article uses samples of trade commentary on small country cinemas in the late 1920s from the Australian trade journal Everyones, and suggests that historical GIS maps could help us to understand regional differences in the cinema-going experience, or track phenomena such as the diffusion of racial and social segregation in cinemas. Nevertheless, we need to remain mindful of the limits of maps to adequately explain the cultural experience of encountering these phenomena.

Rethinking rational addictive behaviour and demand for cinema: a study using Japanese panel data

In this article, I explore the extent to which the rational addiction model developed by Becker and Murphy (1988) can account for cinema attendance, using panel data from 47 Japanese prefectures for the years 1994–1998. Controlling for unobserved prefecture-specific fixed effects and an endogeneity bias of the lagged and lead-dependent variables (the volume of cinema attendance), by using a fixed effect two-stage least squares estimation, I find that people in Japan are likely to be addictive. This finding is contrary to that found in the United Kingdom (Cameron, 1999). Further results suggest that the younger the people are, the more video is a favoured substitute for the cinema. If other factors are equal, the past accumulated consumption of young people is, of course, smaller than that of older people. Hence, the addictive behaviour is more attenuated for younger people because of their lesser past consumption. The complementary effect of past consumption is more likely to outweigh the substitution effect of preferring video as people become older. These findings are in accord with the Becker and Murphy (1988) model of rational addiction.

Determinants of UK Box Office Success: The Impact of Quality Signals

This paper analyses the roles of various quality signals in the demand for cinema attendance in the United Kingdom. Estimation of a three-stage least squares model with data for 527 films released in the United Kingdom shows that the impacts of advertising and critical reviews on box office revenues vary both in channels and magnitudes of impact. Our model treats total advertising as endogenous, alongside the number of opening screens and total box office revenues, while critical reviews are considered exogenous. Our results show that total advertising affects total box office revenue while responding endogenously to critical reviews.

From Minor Misdemeanours to Ill-Gotten Gains: the Emergence of Britain's First TV/Film Crime Series

By the mid-1960s, with the ending of the double bill at cinemas, the supporting feature disappeared. In the meantime, much of the domestic sector’s endeavours had been focused upon a newly emergent form – the filmed television series, known domestically as TV/film and often referred to as ‘telefilm’ in America. The transition from the production of programme fillers and supporting features via ‘dual purpose’ films (that is, filmed series intended for exhibition in cinemas or on television) and, finally, to TV/film series has not been mapped, nor has its significance been appreciated or critically examined. Yet for some producers and studios in the lower reaches of the industry making films for televisual exhibition was regarded as an opportunity rather than a threat. Through innovative strategic management and the ability to adapt quickly, they were able to survive a period that has long been regarded as one of decline in the British film industry consequent upon the sharp fall in cinema attendances caused by the arrival of commercial television from the mid-1950s onwards (see, inter alia, Spraos 1962 and Docherty et al. 1987).1 Indeed, for some at least, this period of transition was one of continuous and economic production and of successful, innovative adaptation to the burgeoning international market in TV/film. What follows is an account of those industrial dynamics that encouraged the development of domestic TV/film and the changes that were introduced in order to accommodate the market opportunities that subsequently arose. It draws upon articles published in the trade journal, Kinematograph Weekly, which is cited extensively throughout. The focus is upon the largest generic component of the supporting feature and TV/film sectors, the crime narrative.

Socio-economic effects on increased cinema attendance: The case of Japan

Recently the Japanese film industry revived after a long period of decline. This has been accompanied by structural changes characterized by the present growth of multiplexes and consumer demand. This paper attempts to explore the recent revival process of the film industry in Japan using panel data of 47 prefectures from the period 1990–2001. I found, through fixed effects and Conditional Logit estimations, the following. First, decay of informal social networks is less likely to increase a film's attendance numbers, while multiplexes are more likely to increase those numbers. Second, new cinemas tend to be built in locations where the market is less competitive and are less inclined to be located in areas where informal social networks are weaker.

Web User Opinions as an Information Source. What Impact on Cinema Attendances?

Digital communication technologies such as the Internet intensify and accelerate the phenomenon of information diffusion by social exchange. The aim of this paper is to assess whether product introduction strategies should be modified in the light of this phenomenon. We conducted an empirical analysis on the movie market to compare the ability of web user opinions with classic indicators such as the mass media and critics to predict box-office takings. The results show that all three variables influence movie attendances. Promotion of a movie has no influence on web user opinions, but critics are influenced negatively for low-budget movies and positively for large-budget movies. Critic and web user advice merges only for large-budget movies.

Multiplex programming in the UK: the economics of homogeneity

What determines the selection of films that end up on the screens of UK multiplexes? Time and again, cinema-goers question why so many venues all show the same thing, despite a low average seat occupancy, whilst other movies struggle to find a place on UK screens. The answer lies less in the range of films that are produced than in the business practices of the distribution and exhibition sectors. These practices have received far less public scrutiny than those of the production sector, yet they are critical in shaping the choice of films available for public consumption. The UK exhibition industry has been in the news a lot over the last few years. We have heard reports of booming cinema attendance, with admissions for 2002 the best in thirty years. We have also experienced an explosion in the number of cinema screens in the country, which are at their highest levels since 1960. There are now at least 3450 screens at 770 UK sites, over double the number of screens existing in 1990. Over sixty-five per cent of these screens are in multiplex sites, a proportion that has grown steadily as multiplexes account for almost all new builds but only a small proportion of cinema closures. Such rapid expansion has not been without problems, however. The number of new screens has grown faster than cinema admissions. Between 1999 and 2000, for instance, screen numbers rose by 6.8% but admissions grew only 2.2% and, more alarmingly, between 2002 and 2003 screen numbers rose by 2.4% while admissions fell by 5.1%. What this has meant is tougher competition between cinemas as audiences are spread more thinly. Some cities, such as Manchester and Cardiff, have far more screens than they can fill, although a few, such as Canterbury, 1 Pearl and Dean. Http:// www.pearlanddean.com (accessed 30 November 2004).

‘Community Cinema’: A Report Based on Material Held at the Rio, Dalston

‘Two classic films by Eisenstein. October depicts the Russian revolution of 1917. Exhilarating!!!’ Such was the Sunday afternoon programme promised in a leaflet advertising the screenings at the Rio, Kingsland High Street, Dalston, in the London Borough of Hackney, for February, 1983. The exhilaration of the afternoon – for audiences who paid the Rio’s £2 admission charge (£1 for under 16s and UB40s, 50p for pensioners) – was to be found not only in the experience of watching Sergei Eisenstein’s 1927 experiment in intellectual montage, but also in the rarer opportunity of viewing Time in the Sun, Marie Seaton’s reconstruction of the Russian director’s unfinished 1931 film about life and culture in Mexico. The Rio was at this time operating with significant debts, in a building that was in serious need of repair, while attempting to attract audiences in a borough which that same year had been unkindly described by Paul Harrison as one of two or three contenders for the title of ‘The Most Awful Place in Britain’ (Harrison 1983: 32). As is well documented, this period was marked by falling cinema attendances across Britain: they had declined from almost 112 million in 1979 to 64 million in 1982 (and would decline further in 1984) (see Hill 1999: 245). The crisis affected cinema exhibitors in general, but there were particular problems for those attempting to operate outside the major chains, and on a basis that was not purely driven by commercial considerations. Whatever the justification for pointing to the potential delights of watching October, those three exclamations marks after ‘exhilarating’ in the Rio leaflet also could suggest an almost desperate optimism held by those attempting to run a ‘community cinema’ in such unsympathetic circumstances. But if the screening of October says something about the enthusiasm of those running the cinema, perhaps the afternoon screening the

The social stratification of theatre, dance and cinema attendance

In current sociological literature the relationship between social inequality and patterns of cultural taste and consumption is the subject of a large and complex debate. In this paper the primary aim is to examine, in the light of empirical results from a research project in which the authors are presently engaged, three main, and rival, positions that have been taken up in this debate, here labelled as the ‘homology’, the ‘individualization’ and the ‘omnivore–univore’ arguments. Elsewhere, we have concentrated on musical consumption in England, and find evidence that is broadly supportive of the omnivore–univore argument. Here we ask whether such findings are confirmed in the case of theatre, dance and cinema attendance. A secondary aim of the paper is to bring to the attention of practitioners in the field of cultural policy and administration the need to address the issues that arise through the use of more powerful methods of data analysis than those often applied in the past. We explain how indicators of theatre, dance and cinema attendance derived from the Arts in England survey of 2001 can be subject to analysis so as to reveal two distinctive patterns of attendance and, in turn, two distinctive types of consumer—who can, it turns out, be regarded as omnivores and univores, even if with some qualification. The former have relatively high rates of attendance at all kinds of the events covered, including musicals and pantomimes as well as plays and ballet, while the latter tend to be cinema-goers only, that is, non-consumers of theatre and dance. A range of measures of social inequality are then introduced into the authors' analyses, including separate measures of social class and social status and also of educational level and income, and it is further shown that, again in conformity with the omnivore–univore argument, these two types of consumer are socially stratified. Omnivores are of generally higher social status than univores and also have usually higher levels of education and higher income than do univores (the latter finding marking the main difference with musical consumption, which was unaffected by income once other stratification variables were controlled). In sum, our results for theatre, dance and cinema attendance lend, overall, further support to the omnivore–univore argument as against its rivals, but also indicate that different aspects of social inequality impact on different forms of cultural consumption in varying degrees and probably through largely separate processes.

The Lure of the Multiplex? The Interplay of Time, Distance, and Cinema Attendance

Models of cinema demand have tended to employ aggregate data and focus on price and income as key variables. Surprisingly, the effects of travel time and location have not been formally investigated. The authors do so, following developments in the environmental economics literature, by presenting estimates of individual travel cost models for multiplex and nonmultiplex cinemas. A key finding is that travel time has a significant negative effect on nonmultiplex cinema trips, but that this does not hold for multiplex trips; reasons for this are advanced. In the case of multiplex cinema trips, a range of phenomena relating to minimising time-cost uncertainty are shown to be significant. The authors also contribute to an explanation for the ‘overscreening’ phenomenon observed in the United Kingdom and the USA, which has led to the closure of some relatively recently built multiplexes.

Revisiting Globalisation Through the Movie and Digital Games Industries

The 1990s saw the digital games console industry adopt similar commercial strategies to the cultural industry which for 80 years has been most closely associated with the process of globalisation - the Hollywood-based movie industry. The major console players, Sony, Nintendo and more recently Microsoft, expanded on a global scale, vertically and horizontally integrating through alliances and take-overs as they sought to control platforms, content development, publishing and distribution. Moreover the relationship between the two industries has become increasingly symbiotic. Vivendi-Universal has moved into the exploitation of both game and film assets on a global scale and would seem to exemplify what we understand by a global firm. This paper considers globalisation through an analysis of the movie and digital game industries both globally, and from the perspective of a small country like Ireland, which has a high level of cinema attendance and game sales but is struggling to establish domestic movie and game industries.

Explaining Post-War Cinema Attendance in Great Britain

This paper models the interaction between cinema admissions and cinema supply in response to changes in exogenous variables, chiefly competition from television viewing. The relationship is estimated empirically by applying near Vector Autoregression (VAR) techniques to a long run of British annual data from 1950 to 1997. The results indicate that sustained negative shocks to cinema demand throughout most of the period reduced the supply of screens, inducing further falls in admissions and closures until a new equilibrium was attained. More recently, the introduction of multiplex cinemas has interrupted and partially reversed this downward demand-supply spiral.

'The Light of God's Law': Violence and Metaphysics in the '50s Widescreen Biblical Epic

AbstractThe essay offers a reading of two episodes from widescreen biblical epics of the 1950s: Henry Koster's CinemaScope The Robe (Twentieth Century Fox, 1952), the story of the Roman centurion who played dice for Jesus' robe at the foot of the cross, and Cecil B. De Mille's VistaVision The Ten Commandments (Paramount, 1957). Widescreen technology was developed in response to a catastrophic postwar slump in cinema attendance. In this respect, it was extremely successful: by 1960, De Mille's film was top of Variety magazine's all-time grossing list. More important, however, is the fact that it transformed the very nature of the cinema image. This article reassesses the historical and theoretical significance of the '50s biblical epic, and argues not only that the metaphysics of presence it inscribed within the Hollywood frame has not been adequately theorised, but also that its transcendental values anticipate the challenge to poststructuralist thinking that has been gathering momentum in Jacques Derrida's readings of Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.