50% of all consumers who have visited the cinema in the last 12 months say they would rather stream or rent new releases at home than watch them at the cinema. The stay-at-home conditions were near perfect for streaming services to capitalise on and they have enjoyed stellar growth in 2020. Cinemas will be competing as the optimum place to see films as studios weigh up the trade-off from building their subscriber bases versus prioritising cinematic releases.

On average, six in 10 consumers have felt some degree of discomfort with the concept of visiting the cinema from June through to November in 2020 as a result of COVID-19. When cinemas were allowed to open after the initial lockdown, attendances were down drastically due to a reduction in prime blockbuster releases and continuing consumer reticence to go to cinemas. COVID-19’s impact will mean that until a vaccine is deployed and delayed big film releases finally bring back audiences in big numbers, attendances will remain modest even when cinemas are allowed to operate.

Due to cinema closures, studios have been putting films out online first, such as Mulan. This has proved profitable for streaming services. Longer term we may see a reduction in the theatrical window of exclusivity for cinemas, meaning films debut both online and in cinemas, making the latter’s job to convince people to come and experience films there first that much harder.

Whilst streaming poses a short-term threat to cinemas as consumers watch major releases online, longer term streaming can act as a trailer for the cinema industry as a whole. Consumers may increase their consumption of content via streaming services, and then turn into cinephiles who are more engaged with the medium of film. Cinemas will also look to diversify their content and further branch out into hosting more independent films, live streaming and communal events, drawing in a potentially more diverse audience.

• The impact of COVID-19 on the cinemas market and consumer behaviour

• Market size and forecast of the cinema market

• Innovations of companies operating in the cinema market, including new launches and partnerships between streamers and exhibitors

• The frequency of cinema visiting, the genres of films consumers watch, and consumer attitudes to different cinema spaces and returning to the cinema

The first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the UK at the end of January 2020, with a small number of cases in February. As the case level rose, the government ordered the closure of non-essential stores on 20 March. 

A wider lockdown requiring people to stay at home except for essential shopping, exercise and work ‘if absolutely necessary’ followed on 23 March. It wasn't until 15 June that non-essential stores were allowed to re-open, followed by pubs, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers on 4 July, and many beauty businesses on 13 July.

By September, it had become clear that the UK was at the start of a second wave, and social distancing measures were intensified. Continued increases in infection numbers led to Wales implementing a two-week national lockdown from 19 October, England announcing a month-long lockdown from 5 November, and Scotland introducing a new five-level system of coronavirus restrictions. 

Despite these restrictions, however, case numbers continued to increase. All four UK nations tightened restrictions in January 2021, effectively leading to a full UK-wide lockdown. There is no defined end date for the lockdown, although the legislation for the English lockdown that was presented to Parliament extends to 31 March.

The UK’s vaccination programme started on 8 December 2020, and with both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines licenced for use in the UK, the government aims to offer a vaccine to 15 million people by mid-February.

Our core assumptions on the path of the pandemic had always included an expectation of severe disruption to markets and consumers’ lifestyles well into 2021, with a strong likelihood that the virus would still be with us even into 2022. Although the second wave of infections and subsequent lockdown puts us towards the negative end of our initial expectations, these developments are still broadly consistent with our previous assumptions.

Similarly, Mintel had factored in the likelihood that an effective vaccine would be available from early- to mid-2021. The licensing of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines puts us slightly ahead of that assumption, but the challenge associated with rolling out a new vaccination programme to millions of people means that our previous assumptions are still broadly consistent with the new reality.

Mintel’s economic assumptions are based on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s central scenario included in its November 2020 Fiscal Sustainability Report. The scenario suggests that UK GDP will have fallen by 11.3% in 2020, recovering by 5.5% in 2021, and 6.6% in 2022. GDP isn’t expected to return to pre-COVID levels until the fourth quarter of 2022. The central scenario has unemployment peaking at 7.5% in Q2 2021.



The current uncertainty, however, means there is wide variation on the range of forecasts, and this is reflected in the OBR’s own scenarios. In its upside scenario, economic activity returns to pre-COVID-19 levels by Q4 2021. Its more negative scenario, by contrast, would mean that GDP doesn’t recover until Q3 2024.

The second wave of infections and subsequent lockdowns means that the short-term prospects for the country are consistent with the OBR’s negative scenario, but this needs to be balanced against the fact that the vaccine rollout is ahead of even the OBR’s central scenario. Medium- to long-term, we are still therefore basing our forecasts and market analysis on the OBR’s central economic scenario

This Report focuses on commercial cinemas – sites whose primary day-to-day function is the commercial display of content. However, data on sites and screens includes any that accept advertising. Companies that own, lease, manage or operate facilities for the day-to-day commercial display of films will be referred to as “cinema operators” or “exhibitors”. Companies that distribute and/or produce films are not the subject of this Report and will be referred to as “film distributors”.