Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

July 1, 2012

Alternatives to movies
music to theaters' ears

Hoping to reverse a decade of decline in attendance, they turn to everything from opera to boxing to fill seats.

By RICHARD VERRIER Los Angeles Times

On a recent Saturday afternoon, a crowd of elderly patrons bought tickets to see Fabio Luisi conduct the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Wagner's "Twilight of the Gods" – at a movie theater in Burbank, Calif.

The show was among more than 40 special events shown in movie theaters in Los Angeles and around the country this year alone, including the National Theatre's stage production "Frankenstein," a live stage version of Ira Glass' radio show "This American Life" and the boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Miguel Cotto in May.

Along with improved food offerings, bigger screens and 3-D projections, theaters nationwide are programming more so-called alternative content. Hoping to reverse long-term declines in theater attendance by luring customers away from an increasing array of entertainment options in the home, they're showing live rock concerts, plays, operas, boxing matches, college basketball games and even National Public Radio shows, often to sellout houses.

"We want theaters to be community centers, where people can come hang out and enjoy themselves and not just watch a movie," said Robert Lenihan, president of programming at AMC Entertainment Inc. "If we can offer better and fresher experiences, we think they will visit the theater more often."

Traditionally, movies have been physically shipped to theaters in the form of film prints or, as technology advanced, hard drives. About two-thirds of the nearly 40,000 screens in the U.S. have been converted to digital. Studios are expected to stop using 35mm film prints altogether by 2013.

The digital conversion has cleared the way for movies to be delivered electronically via satellite and downloaded to servers at theaters. In the next two years 2,000 theaters with a combined 15,000 screens will be connected to a new satellite distribution network.

The nation's top three movie theater circuits – AMC, Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark USA Inc. – recently formed a coalition with Warner Bros. and NBCUniversal to finance and launch the satellite network this fall. Operated by Deluxe-Echostar, the network will serve all theaters operated by the big three chains within the first year, and will also be available to other exhibitors.

The ability to beam movies directly into theaters without having to physically deliver film prints or hard drives has long been the goal of studios. That would significantly cut distributions costs, and theaters owners could receive movies much quicker. The new network will also make it easier for theaters to broadcast live events, especially those in 3-D.

"With the technology we're putting into place, we will have a high-quality digital delivery system that can support both live entertainment and theatrical exhibition," said Darcy Antonellis, chief technology officer for Warner Bros. "It's the natural evolution of digital cinema."

Currently, the top three chains distribute alternative content, such as the Wagner opera shown in the AMC theater in Burbank, over a smaller satellite network, NCM Fathom, which has about 1,000 screens in the country.

NCM is the largest among a handful of companies that acquire the rights to events, market them and distribute the feeds to theaters via satellite. Tickets generally run $20 to $25. The companies split box-office revenue with theaters.

Whether they are prerecorded, live or shown in 3-D, alternative programs share the same goal: to fill theaters during slow times when they are mostly empty and draw new customers willing to pay for a premium ticket.

"If you have a 16-screen theater and there are four or five screens that don't have people in them, and you can fill one of those screens up with alternative content, then you're way ahead of the game," said Kurt Hall, chief executive of National CineMedia, which operates Fathom and the nation's largest cinema advertising network.

(Continued on page 2)

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