People Prefer Watching at Home
audio|video Revolution reports: “In an AOL-AP poll three out of four people said that they prefer to watch movies at home over going to the theater.” Well, duh. This is a surprise? There are three main reasons for this as I see it.
Cost. Now that I have a family it’s hard to justify the cost of going to the movies, so I rarely go. On May 19th I went with some friends and dad to go see Episode III. I paid $10 for the ticket and $10 for a medium popcorn and small drink. Add to that the cost of gas getting to and from the theater, and you’ve come up with a rather large number for one person to see one movie. Contrast that with the zip.ca service I have. (It’s a Canadian equivalent to Netflix.) I pay $25/month for as many DVDs I can watch, four at a time. Sometimes I go through dry spells but other times my wife and I can crank out two movies a weekend. Two movies a weekend for a month, say with 4.5 weeks in a month, gives 9 movies for $25. That’s $2.78, plus tax and snacks, per movie, so lets say $4 for the first person. If you add more people, the cost per person goes down. So for my wife and I it’s about $2 per person. Hmmm. $2 or $20? Pretty easy choice.
Convenience. How easy is it to take a DVD out of the fist full of mail you get anyway, and pop it in the DVD player? Contrast this with getting in the car, going to the theater, sitting next to some noisy people, not being able to pause the movie to go pee, and then having to drive home again. Pretty easy choice.
Commercials. There are just too many of these things at the theater. At home, I put put the disc in right away and cue up the movie. If it forces me to watch commercials (which is annoying) at least I can put the disc in first and get the snacks ready while the commercials play. Not so in the theater. You’re forced to watch the stupid things. Easy choice.
So there you have it. Unless theaters do something really amazing to bring me back, I’ll be watching fewer and fewer movies there. The only real advantage they have for me is the extra big screen. For most movies, that isn’t enough.
Link: audio|video Revolution - Poll Says People Pick Watching Movies At Home Over In Theater
Check out our new sister blog on Home Theater, HTBlog.net
June 21st, 2005 at 9:01 am
I fully agree! I have probably been to the movies twice this year. I just can not justify paying that much money to see a movie. I think the movie industry / movie theaters have gotten too greedy. I know a lot of movies are expensive to create, but their profit margins also seem so huge.
Ever since I got my 60″ HDTV and my wonderful 7.1 surround sound I have never felt the need to go back to the movies.
I think you missed one other major point! The fact that you don’t have to put up with someone else’s crying kid or the idiot behind you who feels they need to comment every five mintues on the movie!
June 21st, 2005 at 2:30 pm
I agree to a point. I live in Westwood and we have the Mann Village (i.e. Fox Theater) here and it’s a magnificent theater. I usually go there to watch a movie I have been anticipating for ages, and usually to the midnight showing. When I go to the midnight showing, it pretty much guarantees that it’s other devotees to the film, and this shows when people applaud at the Lucas Film logo, or the Batman logo, or what have you. But yeah, I only go there for the great films since it’s a hugggge theater seating 1500 people and the screen is awesome, with most films in Digital Projection.
June 21st, 2005 at 3:37 pm
A new theater is going up very close to where I live. A friend lives pretty close too. We might take in some more late shows, but we’ll have to see. I like my home setup a lot. I’ll like it even more once I can put it in the basement so I can turn up the volume a bit.