British cinemas

People watch TV, and they effectively pay for it either by the TV licence or by watching adverts. Ok, we all have to pay the licence in the UK, but you get the idea. If the BBC started having adverts, there would be an outcry that we should pay for the TV licence. So why do we accept advertising when we pay to go to the cinema?

I went to see Wall-E on Saturday. It is quite good. But it took half an hour - THIRTY MINUTES - of trailers and adverts to get to the film. And that included, as always, a few adverts for Odeon itself. And an anti-piracy ad based on Wall-E. So hang on: anti-piracy to a bunch of people who've just paid close to a tenner to see a film in the cinema, and an ad that sneakily advertises the film that we want to see but have to wait for because of adverts like that.

Anyway: we PAY to see a film, and they give us adverts.

Compare that to the US cinema experience which, I hear from two friends, includes only film trailers. No adverts. That just emphasises that there is no argument for adverts helping to cover costs at Odeon: it's pure profit. On top of that, they were charging £6.15 for two cokes and a popcorn. What's the cost to Odeon of that? 50p?

So I thought I'd have a look at Odeon's accounts. Not much in there about advertising, but it did have these figures:

Analysis of 2007 revenue
Box office.....£344m
Retail.....£121m
Other Revenue.....£52m
Total Revenue.....£517m

So, in 2007, "other revenue" was about 10%. That will probably include hiring cinemas out for corporate events, and revenue from premieres and that kind of thing, but a big chunk must be for advertising.

(As a side note, the accounts say how Carlton Advertising (you know that thing that appears before cinema adverts of a star-shaped brand being heated up, then pressed on the screen?) is in trouble, so Odeon and Cineworld are ganging up to sort out a new advertising distribution company. Expect, therefore, an even bigger emphasis on adverts as they try to squeeze more profits out of paying customers.)

Given that advertising is a big chunk of revenue for Odeon, and that it is only likely to increase, I'm fed up. I think that US cinemas will follow in Odeon's wake and start to show adverts, rather than vice-versa.

Which reminded of a small piece in Private Eye this week. Apparently, there is legislation limiting how often adverts can be shown during TV programmes; the minimum time without adverts is even longer for films (watching The Sixth Sense last night, it seemed to be about every 25 minutes). If they can do that for TV, could they do it for film? At the very least, having two showing times for each film--when the "programme begins", say, and when the film itself starts--would help.

I bow to the wisdom of economists and people who know about business, and the way Odeon is doing things is probably good for the economy or markets or whatever, blah blah blah. But all those adverts drive me nuts.