quote: Joe Redifer

---

As for taking newspapers into the bathroom, I don't see why anyone would want to do this.

---

• They cost money - something theaters are very averse to
• Have lead times which can create problems for last-minute showtimes changes

Newspapers have depended upon advertisers for their primary funding, and when things started getting tight for them, they raised their rates, causing many movie theaters to question their value with the rapid adoption of the Internet by their customers as an information source.
The attitude that I've heard from many theaters is that if the newspaper wants to publish their showtimes for free as a service to their readers, they can, but it wasn't something they were willing to pay hundreds/thousands of dollars each month for.

I have to agree with that stance, but I am biased! Newspapers have done a lousy job of staying relevant and if they want to retain their relevance, they ought to be discounting the theater listings heavily to keep them there, as well as running promotions with the theaters to help them stay visible to a rapidly dwindling audience.

We only get the Sunday paper, and most of the times, only the Sunday store ads and coupons get used. The rest might be seen and read, but not often. Every year when they want me to renew, I fight them on price, and usually get about a 50% discount off the standard renewal rate. That's the only thing that keeps me subscribing.
 

---

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-07-2010, 12:25 PM:
 
What I have seen with our local newspapers is a continual decline in quality (largely marked by a shift from articles written by intelligent reporters to badly edited wire-service reports), along with a continual increase in prices. I am not a business and don't advertise, but I have no doubt that ad rates have risen as well. This will do nothing but accelerate the decline of readership, and the decline of advertising sales.

I would just love to have been in the meetings where these changes were discussed. I can imagine that it would have gone something like this:

Newspaper exec #1: Circulation is down because people have found other ways to get news. What should we do?

Newspaper exec #2: I know! We should raise the price and reduce the quality of our primary product, raise advertising rates, and then give away our articles online.

Newspaper exec #3: Great idea! You get a bonus!

(five years later)

Newspaper exec #1: Circulation is down even more, and advertisers are dropping like flies. What went wrong?

Newspaper exec #2: We need to fire some more writers and editors and raise prices even more. Quality be damned.

Newspaper exec #3: Great idea! Let's do it.
 

---

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 09-07-2010, 01:41 PM:
 
When Honolulu still had two major daily nespapers, both Reading Internationals Consolidated Theatres and Regal Theatres used to advertise in both but Consolidated only gave film and show time listings for only three of their major theatre complex and only provided phone numbers to their other theatres on Oahu on weekdays and all of their theatres on weekends Regal listed all of their theatres in a two column by six inch advertisement everyday. When the two papers merged recently, Consolidated started to list all of their theatres everyday in a much larger and elaborate ad in color. Now that Regal no longer list their theatre listings in the Honolulu Star Advertiser, I wonder how long it would be before Consolidated does the same.

-Claude
 

---

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-07-2010, 05:01 PM:
 

quote: Scott Norwood

---

Quality be damned.

---

quote: Mike Blakesley

---

Joe: Just wait about 30 years, you'll understand.

---

quote: Mike Blakesley

---

People don't really care about quality in their news

---

quote: Joe Redifer

---

Or is it a marriage thing... the only time you have to yourself?

---

Actually with me it's a 'reading' thing. I just like to be reading. Even if it only takes me a few seconds to do nature's work, I can still scan the headlines.

I suppose there'll be a day when there's a news browser wall-mounted across from the toilet in new houses.

Back on topic: Last week, we played "Dinner For Schmucks." But the newspaper for some reason ran a two-week-old ad from when we played Inception. NOT ONE person came in expecting to see Inception. To be fair, Inception had been playing for 2 weeks and was pretty well played out when it left...but I still was expecting at least some questions!

So now I'm rethinking our newspaper advertising. If not for the fact that they've been very generous with us in running articles about various projects we've done, we'd probably just stop the ads altogether.
 

---

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 09-07-2010, 09:10 PM:
 
Claude,

We're looking forward to being able to drop our ads, once our contract is fulfilled.

We pay about $1200/mo for the privilege of having virtually no-one refer to our ads for showtimes.

Using a suggestion that I believe came from this forum, I deliberately printed incorrect showtimes for a really popular show. I did the times in such a way that no one would miss the show if they used the published ones. Not a single person showed up too early (meaning they got the showtimes from the paper).

And the cost above is for a 1 column by 1" ad on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Oh, and a 3.25"x3.5" ad in a Thursday weekly from the same publishing group. The weekly is the only thing people actually mention re: our print advertising.

For $500 a month, I can run 200 30-second TV spots every month on cable. For the cost of our monthly print ads, I can blanket both local cable systems with ads.

I'm thinking we'll drop the print ads, and do individual ads whenever we have a film targeted at the over 50 crowd. I jokingly told our sales rep that they should combine the movie listings with the obits, that way the elderly can get their daily read done in a couple of pages.

-David
 

---

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 09-07-2010, 09:33 PM:
 
David,

As a professional photographer who had operated a store front studio for thirty three years before closing it in 1998 and working out of my house now, I used to do some newspaper advertising early in my career. As it turned out, the ads were terribly expensive with almost zero return so eventually I stopped. I think theatres are wising up and many are refusing to play the game with newspapers anymore and I do not blame them. The only question I have is what is going to happen to a lot of old people who do not have or do not know how to use a computer and rely on newspapers to give them movie theatre information? Thank God, I am old but I am grateful I know how to use a computer when I do post production photographic work..

-Claude

-Claude
 

---

Posted by David Zylstra (Member # 4230) on 09-07-2010, 11:00 PM:
 
Last December we ran a survey and less than 9% of our customers reported that they got their showtimes from a newspaper (the survey was done through our POS system so every sale popped up with a reminder for the cashier to ask the question - 7% did not answer).
 

---

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 09-08-2010, 07:40 AM:
 
Movie showtimes should be content that the newspaper provides to the reader. Do they charge the television stations for running their listings?
 

---

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 09-11-2010, 10:14 AM:
 
Here in the SF Bay area, the San Francisco Chronicle has
been raising its' theater listing rates almost quarterly.
As a result, almost all the independent and many of the
theater chains here have pulled their listings.

My employer owns three theaters in SF. He recently pulled
all of our listings after we did an informal survey of
people coming to the theater by asking them how they
found out what we were playing. Newspapers came in
dead last my a margin of almost 4-to-1.

We did get a very small amount of negative feedack from
some of our more elderly customers about not finding our
listings in the paper anymore. But most of them, who are
living on SSI or other fixed incomes change their minds
and actually feel sympathetic when we explain that it was
costing us about $4,000/mo to list our showtimes, and that
if we put the listings back in the paper, we'd have to
raise our senior and bargain matinee admission rates.
That shuts them up quick!

Just for the record, in order of popularity, most of
our patrons found out what we were playing by:
1) Internet (General movie websites, such as Yahoo)
2) Internet (Our theater web-site)
3) Marquee (Driving/walking by the theater during the
week as they go to or from work or shopping, etc
4) Telephone- (Calling the theater recording)
5) Newspaper
 

---