CMPAA | Newsletter | January 6, 2005

January 6, 2005

Howdy Captive Audience member,

It's been a while since I've sent out any messages en masse. Now that the holidays and elections are over with (or are they?), we can now focus on the things that matter most to us, like enjoying a good movie. That's getting harder to do these days with most every major theater chain engaged in a blitz to exploit one of the last refuges we had from invasive advertising.

2005 could be the year that tips the scales. Ad growth in theaters is starting to hit a plateau. There's only so much screen time they can fill with commercials, unless they start putting commercial breaks in the middle of movies. Couldn't happen? Years ago, intermissions in the middle of longer movies were not uncommon, and could soon be exploited this time around.

Reports are now showing that ticket sales declined again in 2004 (down 1.7% since 2003) but average ticket prices in the US increased from $6.03 in 2003 to $6.22 in 2004. If my math is correct, that's about a 3% jump which led to a record $9.4 billion in sales.

Not only are we forced to watch more ads, but now we're paying more to do so.

SOS: Save Our Seats
We've recently put up a new feature on the web site at www.captiveaudience.org/reserved/. This is a printable sign you can use to reserve seats while avoiding the ads. If it catches on, it will accomplish our main goal of enjoying a movie without having to sit through ads when getting to theaters early to get good seats. Thank you Robert Parigi for the idea and assistance on this one.

We got to be a part of it, in ol' New York
Many of you have seen the CMPAA featured in a recent New York Times article about the increasingly annoyed audiences shouting out at the advertisements. While shouting at the screen is a good pressure release and will likely entertain the audience much more than commercial advertising will, our best line of attack is to hit theaters where it counts: in their wallets.

We're encouraging CMPAA members (that's you!) to contact theater owners directly, and often, to let them know you can stay home to watch TV commercials, and likely will if these practices don't change.

Many thanks to Clyde Haberman for our second mention in the Times. You can view the article here:
www.nytimes.com/2004/12/28/nyregion/28nyc.html

Premiere Magazine Proclaims Movie Ads A 'Disaster'
Better late than later, but Premiere Magazine's November 2004 issue lists commercials in movie theaters as #49 of the 50 biggest disasters in movie history. Not bad, but then again #47 is 'Nipples on the Batman suit'. We'll take what we can get.

Rumor has it that Stephen King wrote a recent article for Entertainment Weekly about being peeved at movie ads. If anyone knows which month it was it, please drop me a note.

There's no Flix like Netflix
Can a band of movie lovers organize to change the minds of multi-million dollar corporations? Maybe we can do it by supporting another multi-million dollar corporation. The CMPAA is now promoting Netflix, the online movie rental service.

Why in the world would we do this? Using CMPAA links to sign up for a free trial of Netflix will help fund our efforts. Click here for details.

Resistance Isn't Futile
Someone recently emailed and asked why we haven't given up fighting the mighty corporations. This was answered in a quote that was recently sent to me:

"Everything will be OK in the end. If it's not Ok, it's not the end."
- Anonymous

What can we say? We love movies. There are plenty of other causes in the world that are far more important, but creating an enjoyable distraction from day-to-day life is important too. Movies provide escapism...somewhere we can focus on something other than what kind of car to rent or where we can buy toilet paper.

For better or worse, movies have become part of our culture; the place where our stories are told. But we don't the take time and effort to journey to a theater to hear the story about how a bottle of chemicals will make our floors shiny. We don't pay $10 to see the how the latest teen sensation made her new album.

We go to movie theaters to see how a blind kid from the south can grow up to be a musical legend. We go to see the journey a little animated fish takes to find his lost son. We go to find out what happens when a high school kid gets bitten by a radioactive spider. We go to glimpse our history, or view what life might be like in our future.

Spread the word. Please keep your comments and suggestions coming. Keep talking to theater managers, sending letters, making calls, and avoiding the ads. It's not the end.