And on the other end of the spectrum there is the cord cutting phenomenon -- folks tired of paying anything for entertainment. A new report says cord cutters have jumped from 14% of households to 19.3% currently. http://bgr.com/2013/06/27/cord-cutting-study-analysis/

(06-27-2013 05:35 AM)orangefan Wrote:  And on the other end of the spectrum there is the cord cutting phenomenon -- folks tired of paying anything for entertainment. A new report says cord cutters have jumped from 14% of households to 19.3% currently. http://bgr.com/2013/06/27/cord-cutting-study-analysis/

I bet most of them are still paying just paying different people incrementally rather than a monthly lump sum. Buying DVDs or Blu-Ray or renting via Redbox, or Netflix (and many likely not using the streaming but rather the DVD rentals). Many probably buying/renting video games.

Cord-cutting is a broad spectrum. On one end you have the people satisfied with OTA broadcast and at the other people who are sinking money into one or more of Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc and don't even bother with the over-the-air signal (my son was in that group for a time).

We have a small subset wanting to pay nothing and a larger subset willing to pay something but will forgo some options and timeliness in order to keep costs down.

(06-25-2013 02:08 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(06-24-2013 08:42 PM)orangefan Wrote:  Ticket prices for Live events like sporting events and concerts have skyrocketed in recent years, benefiting from the exclusive nature of the performance and strong fan loyalty. While I'm sure movie ticket prices will continue to creep up, I can't imagine $100 in 2013 dollars. In particular, large screen TVs mean that in a few months you can enjoy the exact same movie on you big screen TV. 60 inch screens have become standard fare, and screens up to 90 inches are available today, with even bigger UHD screens coming soon.

Think about the number of people who take in movie's annually compared with Broadway Shows (I'm defining this as touring musicals not just NYC)

I know broadway NYC itself I one time estimated had a seating capacity of 20,000 across all theaters yet many seats were unfilled on a Saturday afternoon at 65 dollars a ticket (5 years ago). This is in a town of 18 million people and they couldn't fill it up.

Or how much will people pay for a top notch museum? I would say 20 dollars before they start *******. People will pay 25 dollars for IMAX but not for for a regular movie theater.

museums are a special case since they have permanent exhibits but it's the special exhibits that bring in people who otherwise might not visit

it also brings people in from outside their general area

I saw Star Trek in an IMAX; it was a great viewing experience but I doubt it would have gone to see it there if I hadn't gone with someone else

(06-27-2013 05:35 AM)orangefan Wrote:  And on the other end of the spectrum there is the cord cutting phenomenon -- folks tired of paying anything for entertainment. A new report says cord cutters have jumped from 14% of households to 19.3% currently. http://bgr.com/2013/06/27/cord-cutting-study-analysis/

its not about not wanting to pay for entertainment, its about cable being overpriced and forced into bundles where you have to pay for 100s of channels you will never watch. I would pay $1-2 each ala cart for a few channels I like, but $50/month for the 3 channels I would watch is not worth it. I am a cord cutter and I never pirate, I pay for redbox and netflix, I used to have a blockbuster membership where I got unlimited game/bluray movies but my neighborhood blockbuster closed a couple months ago. I go to a sports bar to watch Monday night football and a few other sports games that are only on cable.

(06-24-2013 06:23 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  arkstfan - It's an interesting premise, but the actions seem to be trending in the opposite direction where schools are trying to pool their resources to minimize downside risk. Just look at the new SEC Network deal - Alabama, Florida and Georgia actually did the exact opposite of what you had suggested by assigning the third tier rights that they owned individually for decades (and were making plenty off of that they didn't have to share with the rest of the conference) to the conference in order to create the new network. Even a powerhouse like Alabama still needs access to those households in Georgia and Florida (just as Michigan and Ohio State need the Chicago households), so I don't think we're reverting back to a world with more individual deals. Even if people think that we're going to move away from basic cable, people have very little tolerance for PPV platforms. Netflix, for instance, is still an aggregator of a lot of different types of content at an all-you-can-eat price. It's the same thing with Hulu. In fact, the way that Netflix killed off Blockbuster was by offering a flat "use as much as you can" price for DVD rentals as opposed to paying for them individually. We all still want all-you-can-eat buffets for content. I don't think that will ever change. It's just that we want it cheaper (which is the main dilemma for TV networks and movie studios).

They want to take the risk out of the cash flows. For programs like Bama and Florida, going it alone could result in a lot more money over the next ten years. It could also blow up in their faces. $5 million a year in "sure" money for ten years discounted at 10% is worth about $31 million in today's dollars. $7 million a year in risky money for 10 years will total up to $20 million more in straight cash, but discounted at 20% (higher risk) it's only worth about $29 million in today's dollars.

(06-24-2013 04:45 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Lucas and Spielberg predict that after a series of big budget films flop, the movie market place will change. We will see fewer films and the ones we get will mostly be big budget events with a ticket that will cost $50 to $150 per ticket and run for weeks, months or even years at a deluxe theatre with more amenities.

There actually is a little bit (not much) of precedent for something like that. The film "Gone With the Wind" started playing in London movie-theaters in May 1940 and stayed for five years until the war was over. Not sure what the pricing was, but I'd guess it was as expensive as any movie being shown. But lasting for 5 years is the incredible part.

In 1981, a French-silent movie (4 hours long) from the 1920s about Napoleon was restored and re-edited and shown in select theaters around the world. In the US, it sold out elite venues (Radio City Music Hall, for example) at $25 a pop when the average price of a movie ticket was less than $3. Obviously something like that will never be typical, but it might become less atypical if industry trends continue.

(06-30-2013 07:40 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  In 1981, a French-silent movie (4 hours long) from the 1920s about Napoleon was restored and re-edited and shown in select theaters around the world. In the US, it sold out elite venues (Radio City Music Hall, for example) at $25 a pop when the average price of a movie ticket was less than $3. Obviously something like that will never be typical, but it might become less atypical if industry trends continue.

Star Wars VII could charge $40 or $50 a ticket if the reviews are good.

(06-30-2013 07:48 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  Star Wars VII could charge $40 or $50 a ticket if the reviews are good.

True, and that would be very impressive if it happens.

I don't know, exactly, what today's equivalent would be, based on $25 in 1981. But I'm fairly sure it would be more than $50.

Exactly, right now you have a weird dynamic between distributors and exhibitors. The distributor gets typically 100% of ticket sales (or close to it) the first week or two with the exhibitor taking more as time goes on. The exhibitor is basically using the movie to sell very expensive concessions. Just as newspapers run news in order to get eyeballs for their real business (ads), the exhibitor is running movies in order to sell expensive food and drink.

With this model the distributor wants as many people to see the movie in the first 168 or 336 hours as possible. If the exhibitor offers to put the movie on two screens and his competitor down the road offers to put it on four, the one with more screens wins.

All that works fine if the movies aren't bombs and one upside of the system is you flood as many people in as possible the first 72 hours to avoid bad word-of-mouth.

The scenario Speilberg and Lucas are talking of is where huge money has gone out on several different films. The exhibitors are making a lot of screens available and then the sucker tanks. The distributor gets hosed because the big opening week isn't there, the DVD/Blu-Ray sales aren't there, the rentals aren't there nor are the PPV revenues. The exhibitors have turned a fourth or third of their capacity over and there are no ticket buyers buying $7 cokes.

I think it is a doomsday but it certainly could happen and if the wrong big budget films were to hit in succession it could put a lot of folks into bankruptcy.

That scenario would then logically lead to change. Their scenario which implies films appearing on far fewer screens, makes sense. Constrain the supply. Only a few "elite" theatres get the film. They get a piece of the ticket price superior to what they get now so they aren't pressuring to keep ticket prices down. Rather than running 2 to 4 weeks at the mainstream theatres then moving to the dollar places for another couple weeks, then to sales, then to rental/PPV, then to subscriber services, a film might run 4 months or 6 months at the mainstream place.

It has a benefit for the distributor. Right now they use very expensive advertising campaigns to try to pack the movie house the first 72 hours. Man of Steel opened on something like 12,000 or 14,000 screens. What if it had opened on 1,200?

The distributor can cut the ad and promotion budget probably 95%. First week revenue might be $100 million instead of $500 million but if the word of mouth is good, that revenue stream is three to six months long.

(06-30-2013 06:08 PM)JunkYardCard Wrote:  

(06-24-2013 06:23 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  arkstfan - It's an interesting premise, but the actions seem to be trending in the opposite direction where schools are trying to pool their resources to minimize downside risk. Just look at the new SEC Network deal - Alabama, Florida and Georgia actually did the exact opposite of what you had suggested by assigning the third tier rights that they owned individually for decades (and were making plenty off of that they didn't have to share with the rest of the conference) to the conference in order to create the new network. Even a powerhouse like Alabama still needs access to those households in Georgia and Florida (just as Michigan and Ohio State need the Chicago households), so I don't think we're reverting back to a world with more individual deals. Even if people think that we're going to move away from basic cable, people have very little tolerance for PPV platforms. Netflix, for instance, is still an aggregator of a lot of different types of content at an all-you-can-eat price. It's the same thing with Hulu. In fact, the way that Netflix killed off Blockbuster was by offering a flat "use as much as you can" price for DVD rentals as opposed to paying for them individually. We all still want all-you-can-eat buffets for content. I don't think that will ever change. It's just that we want it cheaper (which is the main dilemma for TV networks and movie studios).

They want to take the risk out of the cash flows. For programs like Bama and Florida, going it alone could result in a lot more money over the next ten years. It could also blow up in their faces. $5 million a year in "sure" money for ten years discounted at 10% is worth about $31 million in today's dollars. $7 million a year in risky money for 10 years will total up to $20 million more in straight cash, but discounted at 20% (higher risk) it's only worth about $29 million in today's dollars.

That's why it won't be Alabama or Florida doing it.

It will be Comcast, or Direct or Time-Warner, or IMG, or Sony, or Apple going to Bama or Florida and telling them they will write an annual check for this amount for the next 20 years if they will sign all their TV rights over to them at the expiration of the SEC contract and they will figure out what to do with them. They might show games in some markets in movie theatres as is already being done with live showings of opera and ballet and some concerts. Outside those markets may be able to buy them for the home screen on a PPV basis.

(06-27-2013 10:20 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(06-27-2013 05:35 AM)orangefan Wrote:  And on the other end of the spectrum there is the cord cutting phenomenon -- folks tired of paying anything for entertainment. A new report says cord cutters have jumped from 14% of households to 19.3% currently. http://bgr.com/2013/06/27/cord-cutting-study-analysis/

I bet most of them are still paying just paying different people incrementally rather than a monthly lump sum. Buying DVDs or Blu-Ray or renting via Redbox, or Netflix (and many likely not using the streaming but rather the DVD rentals). Many probably buying/renting video games.

Cord-cutting is a broad spectrum. On one end you have the people satisfied with OTA broadcast and at the other people who are sinking money into one or more of Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc and don't even bother with the over-the-air signal (my son was in that group for a time).

We have a small subset wanting to pay nothing and a larger subset willing to pay something but will forgo some options and timeliness in order to keep costs down.

I am just hoping my wife doesn't figure out that the viewing interests of her and our two young sons can be fully served even if we cut the cord, and that we are paying about $100 a month for cable solely because of my interest in sports.