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(CBS) A weekly commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney.
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There are several things we do in this country better than anyone else. One of them is make movies.

They produce a lot of junk in Hollywood, but they also turn out a few movies every year that are good entertainment and real art. They call it cinema when it's art.

I don't know why it is, but whenever one person does something well, someone else always comes along and tries to get in on a good thing with a bad, moneymaking idea.

I don't go to a lot of movies, but the last few times I've been, the picture didn't actually start for 15 minutes after they said it was going to. The first thing you have to sit through is the advertising for what they call "coming attractions" -- their next five movies. Wouldn't an ad for just one be enough?

The editors who make these trailers seem to think violence will get people to come to a movie. They have tumbling car crashes, great balls of fire, walls of sand and sword fights. There is never any intelligent dialogue in any of them.

Now, movie theaters have started doing something even worse to delay the start of the picture you just paid $9.00 to see: they show actual commercials. Don't they understand that's what we go to a movie to get away from - commercials?

At least on television, you get to watch network shows free in exchange for being advertised at. None of us like it, but it's a deal we accept. You get 60 Minutes for nothing, but you have to watch 15 minutes of advertising.

Why should we have to watch advertising before a movie we paid to get in to see? Just tell us what time the show starts. That's when we'll come.

Ray and Joe Syufy, two brothers in San Rafael, Calif., run the seventh largest movie chain in the country. They don't use commercials in any of their theaters.

I called Ray Syufy and asked him why he’s one of the few theater owners who doesn’t run commercials before the feature film starts.

“Our viewers. That’s a false economy. People will stop going to the show potentially as often as they do today if it’s not a different enough experience,” says Syufy. “So we are committed to no TV commercials in our theaters. It doesn’t make much sense for them to be sitting in our theaters and being sold toothpaste.”

There ought to be a law that a movie theater has to say exactly what time the show starts. If we want advertising, we'll stay home and watch it for free on television.

Written By Andy Rooney © MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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if we advertised the exact starting time of the feature, then a horde of cretin idiots would show up 15 minutes late for THAT time

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Why should we have to watch advertising before a movie we paid to get in to see?

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I've been to places where there were no trailers all the way to places having almost 40 mins (I kid you not) of trailers and advertisement..

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40mins?? That is bullshit. I would be having a few words with the General Manager over that.

They must be making a killing off slides and commericals, they are including the smaller slide projector " ports " in some of the newer builds, and not installing curtains.

I seriously doubt that they are using the revenue to " help keep the ticket prices down ". That is VERY wishful thinking.
 

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Posted by Adam Fraser (Member # 1074) on 03-01-2004, 02:22 PM:
 
We do run some slide ads before the show from 6:56-7:00 pm at our one screen and have only had one complaint about them in the 4 years we have run them. We run 0-2 trailers and the feature always starts by 7:05. I can say that advertising has kept our prices down, we have only raised our price $1.00, up to $6.00 in the past 10+years. The cost of doing business has went up MUCH more than about 20% in the same amount of time.
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 03-02-2004, 02:18 AM:
 
"For example: Ever notice on cable channels there are dozens of "paid-programming" commercials at night? Shouldn't they be paying that to me since I'm the one paying the cable bill? Instead, money comes in from both the customer AND the programming. It's a double-screw-job if you ask me."

Which is something I've never understood for 20 years- why pay for TV with just as many commercials as regular TV, and content getting to be the same as well, and onscreen logos on top of that? Just say No to cable!
Admission prices for movies should be under $5 if they are going to be preceeded by paid advertising. The UA's in the area added commercials but prices have only gone upward (and apparently they still can't afford to hire anyone who knows how to properly run the booths, either.) I certainly haven't agreed with everything Century's done in the past, but to speak out against ads is a great move on their part that can only bring in more customers (though they don't seem to mention that they have slide ads, and were one of the first companies to have them).
BTW has Andy Rooney ever done anything on his show about the CBS logo being onscreen all the time? That's THE reason why I quit watching TV altogether (and decided not to pursue working in that business), commericals or no commercials.
 

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Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 03-02-2004, 02:29 AM:
 
FWIW,

Century is the only national chain that starts their Evening prices at 2pm on Sat, Sun & holidays (that I'm aware of, at least) ... so in SF ... be ready to fork over $9.00 for a 2:30 show on a weekend .....
 

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Posted by Kevin Wale (Member # 1851) on 03-02-2004, 12:51 PM:
 
While I'm not a fan of onscreen commercials, there is a major flaw in Rooney's argument.

If you get to the theatre "on time" to see the movie... you won't get seats on an opening night of a popular release. Whether it be the twin, tripple, 5, or 8 screen theatres I have worked at, it never fails... if you don't get to the theatre 15 minutes early, you are going to miss the opening credits anyway. Even with 8 mins of previews.

There are lines. The line at the ticket booth. The line at the concession stand. The line at the bathroom. The line at the ticket tearing station waiting for the previous showing to let out.

I always love it how people will show up at 7 o clock for a 7 o clock showing and complain that it is sold out.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-02-2004, 03:38 PM:
 
I wouldn't call that a major flaw.

For one, most theatres that are busy enough that finding a seat takes the entire length of the previews usually don't space out their showings far enough for you to actually enter the theatre 15 minutes early.

Second, how much of the time does this really happen. If I go to see a movie on a Wednesday night (or better, afternoon) in February, do you really expect me to show up for the show 15 minutes prior to the time the projector starts if I don't want to see the ads and trailers? Surely, it's not going to take half an hour to find a seat in an auditorium that will probably have only a dozen people in it.

Besides, you're really overlooking Rooney's argument anyway. He's not saying you shouldn't have to show up a little early to see the show, he's saying that you should know when the show is actually going to start.
 

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Posted by Kevin Wale (Member # 1851) on 03-02-2004, 05:17 PM:
 
Yeah, I was thinking weekends and openers mainly.

I still contend that most people still know what time the movie starts. People that don't frequent the theatres enough to know the routine, usually show up early to see what they are in for.
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 03-02-2004, 07:58 PM:
 
I worked for another company that started charging full price on afternoon shows on holidays and weekends- that got TONS of complaints, and this was before there were slide ads! They eventually changed back to all shows before 6.
 

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Posted by Eric Hooper (Member # 1730) on 03-02-2004, 11:43 PM:
 

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Century is the only national chain that starts their Evening prices at 2pm on Sat, Sun & holidays (that I'm aware of, at least) ... so in SF ... be ready to fork over $9.00 for a 2:30 show on a weekend .....

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Try $9.50

And they put all the 2-6 plexes out of business.

And their popcorn bags are unusually noisy when you crinkle them in the auditorium during the movie...
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 03-03-2004, 06:38 PM:
 
They need to have THX-certified snack bar items that don't make noise!
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-03-2004, 06:51 PM:
 
To be effective it would require the use of THX certified patrons though.
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 03-03-2004, 07:10 PM:
 
Or at least Beano.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 03-04-2004, 09:14 AM:
 

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He's not saying you shouldn't have to show up a little early to see the show, he's saying that you should know when the show is actually going to start.

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Depends what you mean by "show".
 

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Posted by R. Andrew Diercks (Member # 1725) on 03-04-2004, 09:36 AM:
 
I agree that not running slide ads is a competative advantage, most customers, even if they don't complain to you, grumble the entire run in the auditorium. To suggest that we don't show trailers is ridiculous. The average patron sees less than 5 movies per year, and will see less if they don't know what is being released. I see many people hurry into the show, because they don't want to miss the trailers.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-04-2004, 01:17 PM:
 
We have quite a few people who will sit through the trailers, and then when the movie they paid for begins, THEN they go to the concession. I know they're just trying to avoid the longer wait, but
 

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Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 03-12-2004, 12:17 PM:
 
Lowering ticket prices based on revenue generated from ads? HAH! That's wishful thinking, as others have said.

Say you charge $7 a ticket and don't show ads. Then you get slides and rolling stock and are taking in enough money to be able to lower your tickets to $5. Are you gonna do it? Of course not. Because you can still charge $7 AND keep the money from the ads since "nobody complains" Yay, capitalism!

I've seen theaters with multiple prints that will only place rolling stock on the "prime" show, and not the other prints.

=TMP=
 

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Posted by Kyle Watkins (Member # 986) on 08-15-2004, 09:02 PM:
 
Which companys that dont run ads "rolling stock" is what im talkign about. I dotn mind slide ads at all. well seeing htem any ways changing them out is a differt story. Only chain i work for that did not run ads was Easteren Federal theaters, not sure if they still dont or not. But with bigger chains which ones DONT show ads.
Kyle
 

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Posted by James B. Openshaw (Member # 1310) on 08-15-2004, 09:33 PM:
 
Shortly before I left, the theatre I used to work for run by Consolidated Theatres/Stone Group, ran about one or two commercial ads (M&M's, XM Sattelite Radio, Visa, etc.) followed by trailers. Back when I built trailers, I placed a maximum of 3 trailers on the feature following the dreaded commercial ads.

I'm glad IMAX doesn't have any commercial ads on them...yet. We usually place at most one preview trailer before the feature if not any. I strongly doubt that any commercial brand would pay for the DMR process to 15/70 for their ads. Then again, who knows?
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 08-15-2004, 11:14 PM:
 
There was a commercial for Renault made in 3-projector Cinerama.

Many/most cinema commercials have gone through a video stage and it's not always HD. Hence the crap appearance. Imagine them on an IMAX screen. Even if it were shot in large format the reaction at an IMAX theatre would probably be even worse than at a conventional venue. Maybe something really really clever where you don't even realize it's a commercial til the very end might go over okay.

I don't doubt that some of the resentment over cinema commercials is that they are often the same or virtually the same as are shown on television. Something unique and different might not be hated quite so much. Hmmm...maybe there is a vast untapped advertising possibility with R rated commercials.
 

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Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 08-16-2004, 08:19 PM:
 
Sorry about starting a new topic about this subject, but I did a search, and it came up with nothing. Then again, I never have had much luck with the search here.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 08-16-2004, 11:00 PM:
 
No big deal. I just searched for "Rooney".
 

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Posted by Alexander Smith (Member # 1769) on 08-17-2004, 08:49 AM:
 
Reference Steve Krauss on image quality of cinema adverts:

I watched the IMAX-ified Harry Potter 3 at The Printworks, Manchester
last week. I completely enjoyed the presentation. What I was surprised to
see was, a single advert preceeding the feature.

The advert was for HP's digital cameras and colour printers ("you are the
photographer and the photo lab"). The advert seemed to be derived from
the version currently being shown on 35mm, cropped to 4:3 and then given
the same image processing treatment as the feature.

It looked quite acceptable, for something that's (effectively) a blow-up.

There were no titles for the cinema advertising company (IIRC is Carlton
for that cinema), the advert was followed by a IMAX DMR title (which also
looked splendid), and immediately following that was the feature.

I was also moderately impressed that my ticket only cost 4.50UKP
(mid-afternoon show), when some cinema operators in the UK have the
sheer nerve to charge 5.20UKP for a regular 35mm show. ;-)

Alex.
 

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