Cinemas have had a difficult 2014, following on from a poor 2013, as a ‘perfect storm’ of factors significantly impacted admissions. These factors included a weak film slate, with few successful blockbusters or family movies, the football World Cup and the hot summer weather.
While the industry perception is that the poor performance of the last two years is not a result of structural concerns, operators face many challenges going forward including the improvements in home cinema, in terms of screen and sound quality, and the popularity of streaming services such as Netflix. Operators need to innovate in terms of pricing, content and mobile services in order to prevent being left behind by consumers in favour of other entertainment options.
This report examines the current status of the market and looks at the major operators, as well as investigating consumer behaviour and attitudes, and assesses which improvements or innovations would appeal to cinema-goers.
Definition
This report concentrates on commercial cinema venues; that is, sites whose primary day-to-day function is the commercial display of cinema. Data on sites and screens, however, 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.
Arthouse cinemas are those that specialise in showing mainly films that are not part of the commercial mainstream.
Multiplex cinemas are defined as those with five screens or more.
All statistics are supplied by Rentrak, the British Film Institute (BFI) and the Cinema Advertising Association (CAA).
Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.
Value figures are inclusive of VAT unless stated otherwise.
