Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Internet show time listings

This is topic Internet show time listings in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Paul Looker (Member # 5420) on 04-11-2014, 03:01 PM:

Does anyone know the contacts for getting your show times posted to the various internet listings. Like a contact for a person I could talk to. It's absurd how poorly we are getting treated lately. I sent them out like I always do to all the email addresses and fax numbers I usually do for the week of 4/4 and they never made it up. I resent them twice throughout the week and still they never made it up. I have sent them out every day this week and still they aren't showing up in any internet listings anywhere.

Posted by Russ Levinson (Member # 7185) on 04-11-2014, 03:43 PM:

I have had similar experience with this....not sure anything can be done as they favor the national chains.

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 04-11-2014, 03:49 PM:

Hmmm, I tend to have the opposite problem. Our times manage to appear on sites all over the web and often they are WRONG. It is a pain dealing with a customer who is an hour late for their movie because they got the times off Yahoo.

Posted by Paul Looker (Member # 5420) on 04-11-2014, 03:49 PM:

There has to be a contact. Anyone?

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-11-2014, 04:07 PM:

Are you paying them?

A few years back I received an early morning phone call (yawn!) from one of those outfits trying to sell me a $x/month service so I could enter my own movie listings; if I didn't want to pay then I can just email them in and they will do the entries themselves whenever they get around to it.

Since I didn't want to pay I just email them my listings. Actually I put all of those outfits on my email mailing list so they get the same email that the customers who sign up for the mailing list get.

I suspect that if you want more control of how and when your listings are entered, they will charge you a monthly fee; otherwise you get what you get.

For myself, I don't think it's a really big deal since I have my own website and everyone gets their information there. It also doesn't hurt to be the only theatre in town.

Posted by Tony Ratcliff (Member # 1196) on 04-11-2014, 04:53 PM:

Another similar issue you need to watch out for...
Google's profile on your theatre itself.

People kept calling asking if we were open on the weekends.
"Of course we are" I would tell them.
And they kept telling me that it says "on the internet" that we are closed on the weekends.

I finally was able to figure out that when you look up movie show times on Google from a smart-phone, it displays Google's profile info for the theater, including Operating Hours.
It obviously defaults to Mon-Fri 9-5pm.

I was able to correct the Google profile by "claiming ownership" of the business on Google, which set me up with an account where I can edit the Google profile.
I was a pain of a process, but now it displays the proper info for the theatre in Smart phones.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 04-12-2014, 01:01 PM:

Paul,

There are two primary services: West World Media (aka CinemaSource) and Tribune Media Services (TMS)

Nearly all major web sites obtain their showtimes from one of those two organizations.

We use West World Media, and we act as a liaison with them on behalf of our Featured Theaters, which is one of the benefits of having a formal business relationship (in both directions).

Here's a link to some contact information with the guidelines that we provide for submitting showtimes:

http://www.bigscreen.com/extranet/submitschedule.php

We've found that following those guidelines eliminates a vast majority of the issues that theaters report to us.

While one approach is to isolate yourself and tell your customers that the "one true source" of your showtimes is your web site, that's just not realistic to expect that everyone will automatically know to go to the theater's specific web site for that information. It's well worth the time it takes to make sure that the information that is out there is accurate.