In July, AMC, the largest movie theater chain in the United States, launched a preferential policy: every Wednesday, members can buy movie tickets at half price. However, at the same time as this favorable policy was launched, some media found that AMC had planned to increase interstitial advertising to generate revenue, and this move attracted criticism from mainstream media.
The average length of trailers and in-film ads in theaters across the United States has reached 20 to 30 minutes. Image from AMC official website
AMC's "Half-Price Wednesday Day" has been implemented since July 9th local time, and is currently only available to members (monthly membership fees range from US$19.99 to US$27.99, depending on the state, and can enjoy the discount of waived online ticket booking fees) . Specifically, members can buy movie tickets at 50% of the normal adult evening ticket price every Wednesday. This discount applies to all AMC theaters in the United States, but online ticket purchase fees and additional fees for high-end large-screen formats still need to be paid.
AMC said that 36 million people have joined the membership program. "At AMC, we do our best to create a top-notch movie-watching experience for moviegoers, including more comfortable seats, more high-end screening formats and better food and beverage services. Now, we are pleased to make movie-watching even more affordable through the 'Half-Price Wednesday' event," said Adam Aron, chairman and CEO of AMC, in a statement.
Before the epidemic, North American cinema chains were generally cautious about offering fixed ticket discounts outside of regular screenings (such as afternoon shows and children's shows). But given that this year's box office is still down 32.5% from the same period in 2019, AMC, as the largest cinema operator in the United States, is trying more ways to attract audiences back to multi-hall theaters. However, this new policy, which was originally intended to help boost stock prices, was overshadowed by another piece of news. It is reported that AMC has reached an agreement with National CineMedia, which is responsible for patch advertising in the US film market, and is expected to add more commercials before the feature film is screened. In response, Variety, a mainstream media in the Hollywood industry, published an article criticizing that this will seriously affect the viewing experience of American audiences and even harm the entire film industry.
Although the overall situation of the American film market this year is still optimistic and has increased significantly compared with last year, there is still a huge gap compared with before the epidemic, and the number of moviegoers has dropped sharply. Against this background, the situation of AMC Cinemas, which was once in financial difficulties during the epidemic, has not improved much. It still has debt pressure of up to 4 billion US dollars and relatively tight cash flow. In this case, if you still want to attract audiences by lowering ticket prices, you can only find ways to increase revenue elsewhere. Adding commercial advertisements in the opening credits is one of them.
The streaming platforms’ introduction of preferential packages with advertisements have been generally recognized by the public.
According to Variety, this practice has lowered the experience of watching movies in theaters, making movie-watching in theaters more and more like using streaming entertainment services at home. In recent years, streaming services have launched various low-cost, ad-supported subscription models, which are quite popular with American audiences. For them, sitting on the sofa and enduring a few minutes of extra ads in exchange for a few dollars in subscription discounts is not particularly unbearable. However, when it comes to going to the cinema to watch a movie, it obviously costs relatively more money (including movie ticket money, travel expenses or gas to the cinema, and expenses for buying drinks and popcorn), but a lot of time is still wasted on watching ads, which really feels like the service does not match the effort.
Back in 2019, AMC Theaters publicly rejected a proposal to increase the number of advertisements, saying it was worried that "American audiences would react strongly to this approach." However, competitors such as Regal Theaters and Cinemark Theaters agreed to National CineMedia's request to increase the length of interstitial advertisements due to economic pressure. Moreover, according to AMC, this move did not have a significant impact on attendance.
At present, most theaters around the world have the practice of playing various movie trailers and commercials before the main film. The trailer was first born in Hollywood in 1913. The English word trailer originally refers to a trailer or something else towed behind. As the name suggests, the earliest trailers were not shown before the main film at all, but would be shown after the main film was finished. As time went on, the importance of trailers became stronger and stronger, and the number of trailers increased, so they were played from the end of the film to before the main film.
According to a survey conducted by Fandango, an American online ticket booking company, 81% of American audiences are willing to watch trailers. However, in the same survey, the audience's opinions on commercials were relatively strong, with 67% of American audiences expressing the hope that theaters could reduce the number of commercials before the feature film. The practice of inserting commercials before a movie has gradually become popular since the late 1980s and has now become an industry standard. According to media statistics, the average length of trailers and commercials before feature films in theaters across the United States has reached 20 to 30 minutes. In this regard, audiences who do not want to watch commercials can of course choose to enter later to avoid commercial time.
However, on the one hand, no matter how you avoid it, you will always enter the theater a little earlier and see some advertisements; on the other hand, this also prolongs the overall time required to watch a movie, especially when Hollywood movies are more than two hours long. In the United States, it has become the norm to set aside more than four hours to drive, park, buy snacks, and then endure a lot of advertisements to watch the feature film, end the show, drive, and go home. But as Variety pointed out, watching streaming media at home is, by contrast, watch it as you like, even if you have to watch some advertisements, but the time cost compared to going to the theater to watch a movie is incomparable.
In a recent statement, AMC said it was prepared to withstand negative comments about the increase in interstitial advertising. However, given that theaters are currently struggling to attract American audiences back to theaters, AMC emphasized that the benefit of this move is that it will not increase the cost of watching movies for customers. "AMC has not increased the price of basic movie tickets over the past five years. Although AMC was initially cautious about placing more advertisements in theaters, our competitors have participated in this model for more than five years without a direct impact on customer traffic."
In response to this statement, some critics pointed out that AMC forgot that time itself is a cost, and the cost of watching a movie is not just the ticket price.