Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Pre-movie ads rip off theatregoers.

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-19-2003, 02:28 PM:

Two lawsuits were filed on Tuesday againist movie theatres.
The suits claim in their ads they'll show movies at a certain time, but instead, show on-screen commercials at the advertised time, delaying the movie's start.

www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-film19.html

Pre-movie ads rip off theatergoers, suits claim

February 19, 2003

BY DAVE NEWBART STAFF REPORTER

Advertisement

How much is three to four
minutes of your time worth--especially when you're waiting for the latest "Lord of the Rings" movie to start?

That question was posed in two lawsuits filed Tuesday against movie theaters that claim in their ads they'll show movies at a certain time, but, instead, show on- screen commercials at the advertised time, delaying the movie's start.

Theaters are committing consumer fraud when they claim in advertising that a movie starts at a certain time but it really starts a few minutes later because of the ads, said Mark Weinberg, a Chicago attorney who filed the two suits.

"They deceive you into thinking a movie starts on time in order to create a captive audience,'' Weinberg said. "People are actually paying good money to watch commercials.''

The lawsuits were filed in Cook County Circuit Court. One is against the Downers Grove company Classic Cinemas and the other against New York- based Loews Cineplex Entertainment, which also operates theaters here. The suits argue that the practice of showing the ads constitutes fraud, false advertising and breach of contract.

One of the suits was filed by Miriam Fisch, 36, of Evanston, who teaches English and film in Lincolnshire and is Weinberg's former girlfriend. On Feb. 8, she went to see "The Quiet American'' at Loews' Pipers Alley theater in Chicago. She said she sat through commercials for Coca-Cola, Cingular Wireless, Fandango and one for the NAACP, which delayed the beginning of the movie by four minutes past its advertised starting time.

Greg Scott, 35, a DePaul University sociology professor from Oak Park, sued Classic Cinemas after he went to see "The Pianist'' Jan. 26 at the Lake Theater in the west suburb. He said he had to sit through three commercials before the movie started.

Both suits ask for damages of no more than $75 per person. More important, the attorneys who filed them say, is that their clients want the commercials dropped--or they want ads to state the time a movie actually begins, not just when the commercials begin to roll.

"We just want the practice to stop, or we want the company to give notice,'' Weinberg said.

The suits don't take issue with movie previews. That's because moviegoers have come to expect those trailers "as a time-honored part of the moviegoing experience,'' Weinberg said.

Chris Johnson, vice president of Tivoli Enterprises, which operates Classic Cinemas, said the "concept [behind the suit] is ridiculous.''

He said his company had been showing no more than three minutes of commercials at some of its 12 theaters for about four years. But the advertised start time for a movie is for the entire presentation, not for the movie itself, he said.

An official with Loews declined to comment.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-19-2003, 02:52 PM:

As much as I hate pre-movie ads (not including trailers), this lawsuit is ridiculous.

Having said that, at "Daredevil" this past weekend, Regal showed more pure ads than I ever recall seeing before in a US theatre. [Mad]

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 02-19-2003, 02:55 PM:

[Eek!]

Very in-ter-est-ing.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-19-2003, 02:56 PM:

While this lawsuit is ridiculous, I certainly hope they win. Perhaps it would make the greedy corporate people understand that customers do not like commercials. As a customer, I would very much prefer to pay an extra quarter for a movie ticket than watch that shit. Commercials are turning the moviegoing experience into a big tv.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-19-2003, 03:01 PM:

quote:
Commercials are turning the moviegoing experience into a big tv.

Not only that, but they're also advertising TV shows in some cases. What the hell is up with that? Like you said, I bet they'd be money ahead if they dumped the ads and raised ticket prices 25 cents. Not to mention that many, maybe most, of the ads have lousy image quality and are a disgrace to whoever is paying for the screen time. If you're going to buy ad time on a 50 foot screen, at least kick up the production values so you and your product don't look so crappy.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-19-2003, 03:09 PM:

As far as I know, the Signature theatres here in Hawaii does not show any commercials but Consolidtaed (Pacific) does. They used to annoy me when they ran them during "my time" during the advertised show schedule but they have been running them about five minutes earlier now which is great.

Many People have made it a habit to be deliberately late when they go to the movies because they are not interested in watching movie trailers they most likely have seen before. Running these advertisments during the published show time in addition to trailers will encourage these rude people to arrive much later after the start of the feature and make movie tardiness worse.

-Claude

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-19-2003, 03:48 PM:

General Cinema would not have had to worry about this lawsuit. They always made a big deal about starting early, by the running time of all the pre-show stuff, so the advertised start times were accurate.

How I miss those guys.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 02-19-2003, 03:56 PM:

Cinema without commercials sounds like heaven to me.
Here we get 15 to 30 minutes of commercials and trailers, most commercials blown up from video in a truly horrible image quality.

This visual junk drives many people to the back rows - which weakens the impact that the following movie should have.

But now a question to the UK forum members:
Is it still customary in the UK to print the start time for the commercial/trailer program and for the film itself separately in newspapers? I saw that 20 years ago when I visited London.
Seemed like a good idea to me because some people actually seem to enjoy commericial films, but in Germany, no theatre will print the actual start time of the feature.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-19-2003, 03:58 PM:

Tim--we still do this at AMC. Not sure if it's a company policy thing or just a holdover in the ex-GCC houses.

As it was explained to me by one of the NCN people, some theatres use slide ads provided by one company and film ads provided by a different company. As such, the slide company will prohibit them from starting the film ads early in order to get as much exposure as possible for the slides. Since GCC (and now AMC) currently uses NCN for both slide ads and film ads, the early starts are a nonissue.

I agree that this lawsuit is stupid, but anything that reduces the amount of advertising that audiences are subjected to after paying $9 for a movie ticket is a very good thing.

Personally, I don't like slide ads, but I can live with them if they are done tastefully. Film ads--particularly prints made from video sources--are just plain tacky.

Is Landmark (the only other chain I've worked for) the only major chain that doesn't show slides OR film ads?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-19-2003, 04:50 PM:

Slide projectors I can deal with. Rolling stock, I can not. Now, I feel funny about saying "Cell Phone Laws are bad", THEN saying that I think these people filing the suit are right.

Note they are suing only for nominal damages and injunctive relief. It's a good tactic. This proves that they are not just looking for a "deep pocket". Furthermore, it forces the theater companies to spend MORE money defending a suit than they could possibly lose in a judgement against them. In short, they lose if they lose the judgement and they STILL lose even if they win. The defendant's only logical way out is to settle the suit and ammend their practices.

I have to agree with Brad. I think it's ridiculous but some times you have to "fight fire with fire": A ridiculous situation might just as well require a ridiculous solution.

The best answer, in my opinion would be to move the projector start time up to accomodate the total time of rolling stock ads. Now, if the advertising companies complain all they have to do is hold up the piece of paper with the judgement against them and say, "No, we can't! YOU deal with it!"

Posted by Doug Willming (Member # 728) on 02-19-2003, 05:10 PM:

Film Journal has a big puffy article about Regal Cinemedia and how they are going to change the U.S. movie-going culture with their 20-minute "pre-show". I still think it's going to potentially piss off a lot of people and I don't understand advertising for television shows in a movie theatre! I kind of liken it to watching a cute show last night "Life with Bonnie" and being subjected to a ton of reality TV crap show commercials during that 30 minutes. I read in this article that they might show R-rated reality junk before R-rated movies. Well, if I'm out to see something like "About Schmidt", I don't want to be subjected to material that's in poor taste just because I choose to attend an R-rated film.

Posted by Nicholas Roznovsky (Member # 861) on 02-19-2003, 05:35 PM:

Fortunately, my company has so far resisted the temptation to have rolling stock ads before the film. We do have slides, but I can live with those if they keep tacky trailers off of my screens.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 02-19-2003, 06:31 PM:

We don't run ads.

But we have 3 to 4 trailers before each film. When people are late, up to twenty minutes late, they always say, "but the trailers are still on right?" I always tell them that no, there are only 6 minutes of trailers and they are still late.

I always thought that a good use of a video projecector would be to run a pre-show on the screen. So let's say we ran a PSA, trailer, ad, trailer, informational piece, trailer, video art, trailer, music video, trailer, ad, trailer. Then at the moment of our advertised start time, the lights went down and the feature started. I'll bet 5% to 15% of our audience would miss the beggining of the show! [Frown]

Posted by Dino Panagiotopoulos (Member # 1579) on 02-19-2003, 07:01 PM:

Heres something interesting I found on the same site. This one comes from Roger Ebert in his Movie Answer man column

http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert09.html

20 minutes of ads? Walk out

February 9, 2003

BY ROGER EBERT

I got a good laugh out of that AM question about ads in theaters. I happen to work for Regal as a manager. Regal is evil and greedy, but maybe not in that order. Each week we receive a list of commercials that must be onscreen. And every week, each movie has a minimum of eight to 10 commercials. The corporate office is very focused on how much revenue advertisements provide. Everything else is secondary to making sure all commercials are running--including customer complaints. Now, in coordination with RegalCinemedia, Regal Entertainment will begin implementing a pre-feature program: Twenty minutes of commercials preceding the start time of the feature--projected digitally. I wonder how well this will work. Considering that shows will have to end at least 20 minutes before the pre-feature program, this will largely limit the number of shows per day.

Name withheld

A. If I were faced with 20 minutes of paid advertising before a movie, I would simply walk out and demand my money back. Commercials are fine when they underwrite TV or subsidize newspapers, which could not exist without them. But when I pay for a ticket, I am personally subsidizing the screening, and resent being made into a captive victim. I received an avalanche of mail on this subject, and cannot understand why advertisers would want to attract hostility toward their products by deliberately offending potential customers.

Posted by Dino Panagiotopoulos (Member # 1579) on 02-19-2003, 07:09 PM:

Yet another stab at Regal cinemas from the same column.........

http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert12.html

Filmgoer hits ad nauseam

January 12, 2003

BY ROGER EBERT FILM CRITIC

When we went to see "The Two Towers" at our local theater (owned by Regal) we were forced to sit through 30 minutes of commercials and advertisements. This was prior to the usual amount of trailers. The audience that night was close to rioting after the first 15 minutes of ads, and I understood their frustration. The trailers I don't mind but if I wanted to see commercials I would stay home and watch TV. Any thoughts on how we can stop this before it gets any worse?

Joanna Land, Irvine, Calif.

A. I agree with you: I've paid to get in and don't deserve to have commercials inflicted on me. There is another insidious possibility: Movies are currently held to about two hours because theaters want to "turn over" the audience three times a night. If 20 or 30 minutes of commercials are added, will directors be pressured to hold their movies to 90 minutes? There are trade reports that theater ad packages are being promoted as a new advertising medium. What may sink this trend is the intense resentment audiences feel against the commercials. If I were a sponsor, I would think twice before buying ads so that an audience could boo my trademark.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-19-2003, 07:19 PM:

Hopefully a judge with any sense will toss this. Cinema commericals are nothing new, just more prevalent now. If theatres must disclose the precise start time of the feature what happens when the show starts late for whatever reason...technical, just ordinary casual timekeeping, or holding the show for a large number still entering...and the commercials are still there is that risking a contempt charge? If a theatre must disclose the presence of ads shouldn't broadcasters promoting an upcoming show have to declare that 30% of the time slot will be commercials and other non-program material?

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 02-19-2003, 07:28 PM:

In my area, I choose to go to Century pretty much exclusively for a variety of reasons, one of which happens to be that they show no advertising other than trailers before the movie. And they leave the green bands on. [Big Grin]

Or at least, this used to be true. A while ago, they started playing Fandango commercials before every show. I had hoped they were just temporary, but so far they have not stopped. I hope that isn't a prelude to showing more commercials! [Frown]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-19-2003, 07:33 PM:

Century has a stake in Fandango and uses the service for their online ticketing. You will not see the Fandango promos disappear from Century screens.

Posted by Aldo Baez (Member # 790) on 02-20-2003, 02:08 AM:

Scott if I can recall correctly Laemmles doesnt show any commercials except the LA Times one which almost every company here in the L.A. area shows.
At my place its L.A. times, 4 trailers MAX, then policy. On average its between 8-11 minutes of pre-movie stuff.

[ 02-20-2003, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Aldo Baez ]

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 02-20-2003, 06:57 AM:

Variety picked up this story today.

Reading Cinemas in Manville NJ currently runs only a MovieFone advert before the trailers.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-20-2003, 11:31 AM:

For many years Edwards Theatres ran LA Times ads but nothing else, including no slides. The Times ads were generally very low-key and usually featured some interesting piece of trivia related to Southern California history. Edwards was undoubtedly getting some kind of a break on their advertising rates for running the Times ads.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-20-2003, 11:58 AM:

As I had mentioned earlier in my other post, if the commercials are shown before the actual show time and the trailers go on precisely on schedule at the advertised starting time, I see no problem. I feel it is very unreasonable for some to prefer theatres not to show commercials at all even if they are shown before the actual show time like Hawaii's Consolidated Theatres is doing now. Please keep in mind that motion picture exhibition is a busiess and if commercials can bring in more revenue, that is great as long as they are not shown during the actual show time. If they are shown during the actual time period of the show, like all of you, I have a problem with that!

-Claude

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-20-2003, 12:00 PM:

Although I am against pre-show ads, I realize that the revenue from the ads help the theatre. There is not much money to be made selling tickets with some of today's movies.

However, I certainly do not agree with any of that crap that is mixed in with the trailers. I'll go along with previews at the beginning of the movie, as long as they don't drag on for 10 minutes or more.

Even as far back as 1967, I ran a bunch of previews at the beginning of the movie at the station theatre at NAS Whidbey. Several times, I ran more than 4 of them in one shot. I caught hell about that, and was told not to do that anymore by Special Services. There was simply too many complaints by the officers and enlisted personnel as well as their dependents.

Posted by Michael Hunt (Member # 772) on 02-20-2003, 02:00 PM:

my little Art-house cinema over here in the UK includes the following note in its Programme

'Most cinema screenings start at the advertised time with a short programme of advertisements and trailers which may last up to fifteen minutes.'

For shows when no adverts are going to be shown, the tiocket office lets people know this when they buy their tickets for the film.

I never programme more than fifteen minutes of pre-feature material, and when there's less than that I let the ticket office and the ushers know the duration of the adverts.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 02-20-2003, 02:02 PM:

I would bet just about anything that the next step in the plan is to insert the ads in between the reels of the movie.

(slaps self) Don't give them any ideas!

Posted by Don E. Nelson (Member # 1049) on 02-20-2003, 02:20 PM:

I personally don't mind the adverts and lots of trailers. It allows me to get my large buttered popcorn and a super large coke without having a coronary in the concession line wondering if I am going to miss the opening of the movie. The opening few moments of a film sets the tone for the entire movie for me.
I went to a film seminar years ago and one of the speakers was one of the top movie opener credit designer guys. I had always assumed the filmmaker/director did their own intro's. Its quite an art to take a finished movie and then design the opening credits.

Posted by Matt Hale (Member # 1518) on 02-20-2003, 04:21 PM:

Although I abhor commercial advertising before the feature and will usually heckle loudly if there is more than 1 ad (I know nobody is listening, its the principle of the thing) I recently discovered an actual use for ads...

When I went to see "The Guru" it took the entire 20-minute length of the ads for the "projectionist" to get the thing threaded up properly and in-frame, stopping and starting the projector each time they tried a new film path. They finally got it right (sound and all!) just as the feature hit the screen. Were it not for the excessive advertising, the whole first reel of the movie would probably have been ruined, and as it was the ads were so horribly disfigured that I never did manage to figure out what they were trying to sell me.

I did not demand a refund.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-20-2003, 07:14 PM:

I hope it's not the same lawyer (or jury) from the lawsuit against McDonald's for having their coffee too hot.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-20-2003, 07:39 PM:

Scott, thanks for the clarification.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 02-20-2003, 07:45 PM:

AMEN Brad! That's why I will not run ads (film or slide) before any feature at any of my projects. I actually plan on using cartoons and shorts (gulp) plus trailers on my screens and will list the feature time. However, running ads in the lobby is a different matter.

Posted by Barry Martin (Member # 1376) on 02-20-2003, 08:07 PM:

I don't think it's a terrible thing to have ads such as moviefone or fandango...at least they are theater-going related and can possibly provide a service to the customer, such as finding out you can purchase tickets online and not wait in a 20 minute box office line followed by a 30 minute concessions line and a 10 minute ticket-taking line. Wow..there's an hour already!

Trailers are of course acceptable, I generally notice people ENJOYING trailers especially with the "big films" like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, X-Men, etc. However, ads for beverages (Coke and Pepsi), Legos, TV shows, Cars, Armed Forces enrollment (screen advertising isn't supposed to be cheap...should we really be spending all that money just to get people to enlist?), etc. are all ridiculous. Ridiculous things can serve a purpose...look at Jim Carrey. [Big Grin]

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 02-27-2003, 03:44 PM:

One of the lawyers on this case is claiming a good amount of support: nearly 700 supportive e-mails plus a website with more than 20,000 hits to date. He also plans to sue a second chain as well as Loews Cineplex.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 02-27-2003, 04:58 PM:

Without stating exactly how, I am already seeing the repercussions of this lawsuit on a local level.

My feeling is that NO feature should have more than 4, YES - FOUR trailers and nothing other than Policy trailers, and logo trailers for DTS, SR-D, THX, SDDS.

Then again, I'm a low man on the totem pole.... [eyes]

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 02-27-2003, 05:03 PM:

quote:
Edwards was undoubtedly getting some kind of a break on their advertising rates for running the Times ads.

I've seen figures amounting to around $2 million annual discounts for the chains' ad directories in the L.A. Times ( I assume this figure was for all chains combined). This was back in the 90's. The Times ads continue to be entertaining and well shot productions.

I agree with others here. 4 is about the maximum of previews I can retain. Any more and I almost entirely forget about which ones I saw after leaving the theatre.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 02-27-2003, 05:16 PM:

At my student cinema we show Pearl and Dean advertising.

I recon that if we didn't show the adds we would have to nearly double the ticket prices.

We are sticking with the ads. [Smile]

Cinemas show ads because they need the money.

When going to a cinema I will gladly watch 10 minutes of ads if it means that my ticket price is less. Ten minutes of my time is worth less to me than any of my money.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-27-2003, 06:01 PM:

I don't know anything about big-city theatre finances, but I can understand why the public resents paying $7 or more for a ticket and then being forced to sit thru a bunch of ads. We don't run ads here, although the money would be nice, I'd rather suck it up and go without than do something that's virtually guaranteed to irritate many of the customers.

What I DON'T understand is why there isn't a big outcry about the ads virtually everywhere else! Sports stadiums are particularly irritating to me, for some reason, especially on TV. Watching the same logo go zipping back and forth on the screen during a basketball game drives me crazy.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 02-27-2003, 10:48 PM:

Just watched episode 13 of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

"The Managenment Regrets we will not be showing a feature film this evening as it eats into the profits."

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 02-27-2003, 11:11 PM:

John...

EXCELLENT.. simply EXCELLENT..........

[beer]

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 02-28-2003, 02:19 AM:

See personally I dont like the adds but because I like to "debate" here is what I think...

Theatre A and Cinema B are identical theatres built by the same chain and later bought by 2 different independant companies. One shows on screen ads and one does not. The one that does has used the extra cash to upgrade to all digital sound and new seats They charge $7 a ticket. The other one plays in mono sound with seats from 1976 they also charge $7 a ticket and both are first run. Which theatre would you attend?

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-28-2003, 01:46 PM:

That Monty Python episode also said something like "Here's something else to keep people out of the cinema- show advertisements!" [Big Grin]

I agree that if you put the money from the ads to good use it can be forgivable, but some theatres have started running ads AND raising ticket prices but still have analog sound in some houses. Upgrading to digital should be a top priority with the ad money, not buying someone a new car.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 02-28-2003, 04:42 PM:

Or...

Theatre A and Cinema B are identical theatres built by the same chain and later bought by 2 different independant companies. Theatre A shows on screen ads and Cinema B does not. Both offer the same service (sound, seats etc). Cinema B has much higher ticket prices.

Which theatre would you attend?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 02-28-2003, 05:00 PM:

Sean that one is easy neither
I see no problem with the advertised time being the start of the previews or main feature
I do have a problem with being forced to watch comercials and pay for it
In fact we don't patronise any local theatres that runs comercials