Commericals before Movies Backlash
 

I've always hated the advertisements before the movies. There's a few threads about it in the past, but this study brings up some hard numbers.

The only time that I did like the adverts was in Singapore where the cost of the ticket is still around US$6 and you get a reserved seat.

HATE THEM. If there are ads, I walk out, and ask for my money back. Same with DVDs. I have gone back to the store and asked for 1) my money back or 2) a discount (usually with no luck, but it helps me to vent).

It's as bad as getting commercials on Pay TV. or Public television. I truly believe that the price of admission should absolve you of viewing any advertising above the traditional trailers or concession blurbs.

If i wanted to pay for publicity, i'd wear tommy or A&F clothes. I hate those ads, that's why i go less and less to the movies and stay at home and watch the dvd in my home theater. The place is by far more confortable, i don't have to take annoying teenagers, i can rewind if i missed a part or didn't understand it, and best of all, i can have sex while watching the movie.
Screw the Cinemas, get yourself a good dvd player and find in the internet how to hack it so you can play any region movies and fast forward those annoying ads.

I'm not trying to flame but that makes you look like a jackass to the person where you bought the DVD. Venting to them is pointless, even if you actually get to speak to the district manager. They sell the product, they don't make it. They have no control over what is in the product. There is no reason why they shouldn't sell the latest blockbuster movie just because the MANUFACTURER put a couple of ads in it. You could save yourself a lot of time and frustration by just buying a DVD burner, Nero, and downloading DVDShrink. In 30 min you can re-author your DVD so that it only includes the movie. No trailers, no bs. You stick the movie in and it plays immediately. As a bonus you can always make a second backup if the first backup gets scratched. As expensive as DVDs are you should backup all your movies anyways.

Regarding 'pay tv' are you referring to HBO, Showtime, etc or Comedy Central, CNN, TBS, etc.? If it's the latter than you really need to educate yourself on how cable tv works. The cable networks don't make enough to live off the subscription fees. Without the ads your cable bill would be a LOT larger.

Like it or not advertising subsidizes the costs of many things (however they get you back when you buy the product). We wouldn't have TV, radio, and most websites without advertising. If you have that much of a problem with it buy only generic label items. That way you get the subsidized costs without having to pay the advertiser back.

I hate the ads, especially seeing the same one over and over at every film I see. I do like the Kodak film contest that I've seen recently, but I don't consider that an ad. And I remember the first time I saw an ad at a movie theater. I was so shocked and felt like I should be paid to watch it considering the rising costs for movie tickets and concessions. But it won't stop me from visiting the big screen. I'm a true diehard. Gotta have my film fix, one way or another.

I'm 28 and I don't remember a time when movies didn't have advertising prior to the show. When I was young it was just a slideshow deal. Now they have evolved to full motion video. What is the difference? Who forces you to watch?

The theater does. If they were to start ALL the ads before the time specified for the movie, I wouldn't mind as much, but as it is, if I don't get there before the time specified, there may well be no seats left AND I have to watch the fucking goddamn ads.

I have NO interest in ads. I'd banish billboards if I could on safety grounds.

Kutulu, that's a great idea. I may have to look into it. Get rid of the forced FBI warning in 17 languages, too. I hate ads. Hate hate HATE ads. If I don't hear about it through word-of-mouth, I'll be fine without it.

I have a multi region player that I got for a reasonable price... I too hate the fact that they say the movie starts at 7:20 but with all the ads and trailers it starts at 7:45.

I remember the first commerical i saw in every movie preview was that mountain dew commercial with the car flipping over. I remember just sitting there and thinking, "wait a second, are there always commericials in movies?" Soon that 1 commerical turned into like 4 or 5.

I don't like the commercials at the movies either, but if they're going to have them then they should put some production value into them. Give us an ad that we won't see on TV. Maybe give some ads with boobies in them during R rated movies, or some death and destruction, not the same old lame ass stuff you see at home.

i hate them. that's usually the time i go and get a drink and some sour patch kids.....mmmm, i love those things

i just want a list of exo's and ceo's of the ones that ok'd this.. all i ever will need.. thier lives will pale in comparison to what my friends and I have to deal with everytime we go to the movies.

Went to The Incredibles this weekend - had to sit through 15 minutes of commercials. Commercials mind you not previews or the short at the beggining on The Incredibles. The theater manager and owner now know that I will not patronize their theater until this practice is dropped.

I saw The Incredibles at a small local theater. There were NO ADS! None! Just previews. I will be going back there.

I got really annoyed at ads in movies. I paid 15$ for your product, don't put shit in it. How would you feel if you bought a fridge but it wouldn't open until you've read about how cool nike shoes are? About 8 months ago I stopped going to theatres completely because of ads.

If they remove the source of advertising revenue, you're going to pay more. People would not pay twice as much for a movie with no ads. It's a simple supply/demand thing. Unskippable ads on DVD's, however, mean that I will not be buying another product from that company.

This is especially annoying during midnight showings (the only movie showings I actually go to these days.)
Most of these movies clock in at near 3 hours, and it's 12:30 by the time they start, so you're not home till 4. Very poo [for lack of a better word than poo.]

I quit going to movies back when The Phantom Menace came out.
I still get the ads and FBI warnings and various studio animated opening sequences, though. :|
I just wish there was a button that you could push that takes you to the damn menu!

Every time you want to rewatch a favorite dvd, you have to watch the same opening sequences over and over again.
It's even bled over into porn dvd's!!!

I love that the 20th Century Fox guy wants them to stop showing commercials, saying, "just show more trailers." Wonder why he wants that?

Would you be willing to watch the commercials if they gave you a discount to do so? Consider this--admission is $6 to sit through 10 minutes of commercials, or you could pay $7 and walk in after the commercials ended. They could have 5 minutes with the lights on between the commercials and the movie trailers (i concede to watching those) so that the latecomers could see to come in. What do you think?

If there was a way to reserve seats, it'd work.

I don't bother to go to movies anymore - why should I? Nothing has come out that I HAVE to see. I have the large screen tv and surround sound. Why should I pay $6.50+ for tickets (matinee), $3 for a coke, and another $3.50 for a small popcorn? It's not worth it! Not to mention the loud-mouth mfers who know everything about the movie (why are you here?).
Used to be that movie to video release was a year +. Now it's months, or weeks. Of course the pay channels run ads (remember when MTV showed nothing but Music Videos?), but the ads run before the shows, and I can switch channels until the show is on (usually at the time advertised).

mmm, yea i hate them too..specially since its $9.75 near me..popcorn (small is $5, drinks $3, candy $6) it really doesnt make sense to go i guess...but i still end up going...

the one thing i do do (revolt i guess) is bring my own damn candy and drinks in my bag...

I always do that. Fight the power!

I already gave up on theaters. They cost too much. They're uncomfortable. The room always has some percentage of idiots who can't help but to make noise by either talking, eating louder than a vacuum, bringing their babies to R-rated movies, etc. They have commercials. It's all just a terrible experience... it's not worth it to have to deal with all this garbage just for the sake of seeing a film on a big screen and having it loud. RARELY does a movie come out where this is any real advantage. I would say the LOTR trilogy was the last string of films that I really wanted to see in the theater. After that, I won't go unless I somehow obtain free tickets via coupons or something. Watching at home is such a better experience. I don't buy movies, but if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't buy one if I knew it had obligatory commercials on it oO!

To address your points, I have gone back to complain about 2 dvds. Once to Blockbuster (no luck) once to Rogers, who were gracious, apologetic, and offered to exchange for any other first run selection. they even let me check an opened copy before I took it. Now I ask before i purchase.

As for a dvd burner? i just got a cd burner installed in my computer (last april) and that was a major undertaking. After rebooting to start up, the machine went into safe mode, and i could not recover. I had to take the whole thing to a shop, to have them back up the data, and re-install the operating system. so while I appreciate the advice, I'm not about to go messing around with expensive dvd burners (i know, they've come down in price, but when the cd burner was $40 i bought it - hopefully byu the time i upgrade my P3, dvd burners will be part of the configuration)


With respect the Pay TV, I was refereing to my first experience (superchanel and first choice) which were fine until they brought on commercials, then jacked up the price. Cable for me costs $42/month, and that includes all the chanels up to Much Music, including CNN, TBS. HBO is not offered. I don;'t think i need to educate myself in this respect (near flame there) The business model for Pay TV has already incorporated subscription as the vehicle for finance. The addition of advertisers is the classic bait n switch, model of what ever the market will bear.

We have a Regal cinema in our area, and the ads are absolutely disgusting. They had something like TEN ADS for some stupid animated thing, and it was obvious that it was geared towards kids. The worst part was that it was right before The Incredibles, so we all started making fun of how crappy the animation was relative to Pixar's stuff.

I'm never going back there again. I'd rather drive another half an hour and pay $3 less to see movies in Arundel Mills. They still show ads, which I hate, but at least it's not as pervasive as Regal. When a theater charges nearly $10 and then forces HALF A FUCKING HOUR of shit down my throat, well I'm not going back there again.

Did you tell them this, DR?

When I have to pay USD$10 for a bloody ticket, I sure as hell don't want to see those frigging commercials.

If ever there was an encouragement to rip movies...

With my digital cable I pay about $40-50/mo (I don't know exactly). I'm getting somewhere around 100 channels plus the music channels. That averages out to less than 50 cents/channel that has to be split up between the cable company and the network itself. Sorry but that's not enought to cover all the costs of the cable company and the networks. The only way for you to get all those channels is for them to run advertising.

hahaha, fight the power indeed :)

I'm no fan of advertising, but we do live in a capitalistic society. Everything we do is pitched toward spending more money. Why do you think you are even going to see that movie? Probably because you saw an advertisement to see it. We buy into it every day without even knowing it.

The alternatives? You could always become amish or communist.

I don't like them, but if it really bugged me that much I would stop going to movies. Thats how free enterprise works. If enough people stop going to the movies because of the advertising, then they will pull them. Thats what the main article is about.

I stopped going to movies because of the cost, not the commercials. I've seen two this year and that's all I plan on seeing.

Yeah commercials in movies really piss me off, especially with how prevelant they have gotten. I remember when it was rare that you'd see one, the ad would start playing with them half-assed disguising it as a trailer, then boom! commercial kicks in. My brain would screetch to a sudden halt as it tried to wrap itself around the fact that a) there was a regular commercial in the movie theater, b) that it was disguised at first as a movie trailer, and c) there was a regular commerical in the frickkin' movie theater! And now they don't even bother with "b," as I see the same ones that I sit through on the rare occasion I watch regular tv outside of sports.

I understand they want more revenue, but somewhere as an industry you need to draw the line. You can't just depend on the consumers to avoid whichever theater is doing it, as in many markets there is a division where only certain chains get certain movies, giving them a lock on certain studios' films. The net result is a dissatisfaction about going to movies period, not just about going to movies shown at this chain of theater or that chain. This is why it will hurt the industry as a whole if individual theaters keep pushing the limit seeing how far they can go with more and more commercials, and simply respond to complaints saying "well you can always try a different theater," knowing they don't have much convenient choice.

Maybe if the MPAA can come up with hard guidelines limiting how long after the list time any theater showing a film represented by a mpaa studio is allowed to show commercials before they must start showing the required trailers and movie. Now, this would have to be a fairly short amount of time because of any movie trailers that would be attached by the studio, so say maybe 2 1/2 minutes of commercials before previews. While I would still be upset about having them, at least it would limit the non-movie-related commercials to a minimum, set time, before movie trailers start, so the mood isn't disrupted quite as bad as it is now. Also, the hard limit that individual theaters or chains would not be able to get around, could drive the demand of any commercials for that time period way up, so they could still maintain profits. This keeps it from being a survival of whoever is willing to pack the most commercials in at whatever low price situation that is starting to brew.

Janey:

Try looking at it this way:

Assume there are 50 million households that have either basic cable or satellite and they all pay about $50/mo and get 100 channels. The total revenue would be about 2.5B. Assume that the cable company provides their services free of charge to the customer and has no bills to pay. This is an asinine assumption, but it allows us to assume that the money goes solely to the networks that run on your cable tv.

Dividing 2.5B by 100 channels gives an average of $25M in revenues for the channels. With that money, they have to pay for their programming, pay for equipment, pay all their workers, and generate a profit. That's just not enough. It's not even enough to pay all their workers. There is no way we could have cable at a reasonable cost without commercials.

I'm sorry that you took my earlier post as near a flame but you just didn't seem to be looking very deep into why they run commercials on cnn, espn, tbs, etc.

I saw it because of a preview and word of mouth. I don't use much stuff with ads in it, so that won't work as an argument.

very well stated... yes it costs money to run the networks... that's why MTV was able to buy networks like BET because the costs of running it were higher as a single station but when run together as part of the family it's a fraction of the cost.

Ads in movie theaters are really starting to piss me off. I would consider myself tolerant towards newer trends, but invading Movie Trailer space for marketing is just one step beyong my accepting limit. I go to theaters happy to see the Upcoming Movies, when you see trailers for big movies like the Matrix, or SpiderMan, the Hulk, etc. You just hope that they will play them again for the next movie you see.

When you start seeing stuff like animated cartoons saying how sexy their hair is because of X product. I just die inside. I get infuriated. I now purposely get to Theaters Late, so I can miss the bullshit ads.

How is this helping the industry when it's just pissing off the customers? I don't pay to see a movie with extra content, I pay to see a movie I was expecting to see. If they want to validate the situation, make a preview of the commercial in the movie trailer. Shit, make the commercial preview more interesting than the actual trailer so it stands out more and I am more likely to buy their product? This goes right along with preview time getting longer and longer. Back in the day, you would have about 2-3 adds, which comes out to 5 mins before a movie starts. These days you're subjected to 20 mins of previews for a 1hr 30 min movie. Let's see... I give the movie industry 10 years before the adds before a movie become 45 mins long.

The WORST part about this, the very worst, most appalling aspect, is the fact you can play commercials on the screen while people are waiting for the actual movie to start. Why not just have adds run before/after the annointed time for the movie. I would much prefer that, then to suffer through ads I don't fucking want to see which are seemlessly connected to the movie I paid to watch. I might even be greatful if the ads played on the screen while I waited for my movie to start, it might give me something to do while I have 10 mins to blow.

The industry wants people to stop downloading movies from P2P networks, but also wants us to put up with ads at the beginning of the movie that we are paying to see. The industry argues that they have to put the ads at the start of the movies to recoup the money lost from the people stealing their content over the internet. Customers are driven away by the ads and may turn to the internet to download that movie.

Does this remind anyone else of the argument that software manufacturers were making years ago about their prices being so high because of piracy? Lower your price to a reasonable level and more people would buy the software instead of copying it. Not exactly the same scenario, I realize, but I think that there are parallels.

I dont think I mind them putting ads as much, as the length of them. Like Cynthetiq said, I dont like showing up at the published start time for a movie and then spending 20-25 minutes watching ads for stuff I do not care about.

This is what pisses me off the most... The MPAA ads about the starving set designer who is losing out because of people downloading their movies. Um - aren't we the ones actually PAYING to see the movie? Why the fuck should we have to sit through anti-piracy ads? Egads - sometimes these marketing drones are so incredibly stupid it defies logic.

Explain that to me MrSelfDestruct.
Theaters did fine for years paying the same rent and distrobution fee's.
In fact, as most theaters pay for the right to show a movie for the whole chain, their cost has not risen greatly over the past four years regardless of opening new theaters.
Why would a movie cost twice as much? Ticket costs have risen in tandem with rising rents and liscencing fee's. If ticket costs have risen in concert with new costs for the theater owner, then this is really about increasing their bottom line, not making ends meet or covering costs.
Often, theaters make a bulk of their money on the concesions. The rest is made up through ticket costs.

What this amounts to is a money grab at a captive audience that is not designed with meeting rising costs, but instead with increasing profits.

I for one always let a manager know my displeasure with the practice. I refuse to speak to an assistant manager, and will wait as long as needed to watch a manager log my complaint instead of hearing me out then forgetting about me.

What it comes down to to me is that the face of entertainment media is changing- the old ways for the record companies and movie studios WILL NOT WORK ANYMORE- piracy CANNOT BE STOPPED- and they are loosing money like blood from an artierial wound- the world is changing, just as globalization has changed manufacturing worldwide, the studios are going to have to adapt to survive- and it is not a great idea to adapt in a way that insults and pisses off your customers- Itis a short term patch that will not solve the inherent problems that plague the industry- My two cents worth on fixing the problem involve making movies that do not suck, I see more viability in projects like those done by peter jackson, and (though he is now a hack) George lucas- they are not complaining about loosing money, are they? largely because they created a FRANCHISE that people love, and they make a bazillion dollars on the merchendising - look at the release of dvd's- T.V. shows are making great money on this- I guess the idea is not to make a movie, but to make a setting, a place that people can escape to (that is the purpose of entertainment, after all) and capitalize on that- I sorely hope that Hollywood and others are catching this trend, and actually do something neat once in a while......

Those are funny. I also like the piracy ads that suddenly covered the malls I work at. Everywhere I walk, there is an ad telling me not to pirate movies. Its like they want me to make me do it out of spite. :|

They put that there because there are people who will pay for a ticket, come in with a camera, film the movie, then post it online.

I wonder how many of these people shut off their video cameras when they see these ads... :|

I just go to matinees so I know it won't be crowded and walk in 15 min after the advertised start time. I also avoid the concession stand most of the time. Paying $6 for half a gallon of coke that will make me have to pee halfway through the show and $5 for popcorn I can eat at home for $.35 or candy that I can bring in my pocket for $.75 doesn't make sense to me. For some people buying $15 worth of junk food to eat during the movie is part of the experience. I call these people "victims of advertising".

I just laugh at the FBI warnings you can't fast forward through on DVDs. I mean really, do they think people will read it if they can't FF through it? Or that people pirating DVDs are doing it because they think it's ok and had no idea that it was illegal because they always fast forwarded the FBI warning? Please.

I shouldn't be paying to see something someone paid to have shown to me that I am completely disinterested in, particularly when the tickets around ten bucks and the concession stand prices are absurd.

Probably not. OTOH, there are usually people around the asshole, and those people might do something about it.

i like watching movies in movie theatres. its the atmosphere. the worst part is that there's no leg room ever.

i don't like the ads, and feel that if they show ads, that should reflect in the cost of admission.

its hard to tell theatre chains not to though when they're making $400m per year off of them in addition to their normal admission takings.

most of the movies i see now are screenings, and there are no ads and no trailers at all before them, so its actually where when i go to a chain theatre. The last one was a loews, and it wasn't to bad, and that was for Team America: World Police.

That's why I just download them.

No ads, no hassle.

The ads are part of the reason I stopped going to the movies - that and I'm sick of wasting money on crappy flicks, but that's another story.

You're their excuse to do it to the rest of us. Thanks so much.

I used to work there, and know exactly what their response would be and where it would go. It's always been a crappy theater, and the only reason I went was because my family was with me. Well we all learned our mistake.

I might e-mail corporate though.

I wouldnt mind that much about the advertising if it lowered the cost of the actual movie. But with movie prices going up and up, and more commercials being shown, it doesn't make sense.

No, I'm not the reason they do it. The movie industry brought in something like $9 billion last year, that's the second highest in history. They aren't losing money, and whoever believes they are is grossly misinformed.

They do it because you're simply a "consumer" to them. Not only can they get away with jacking up ticket prices for crappy movies you've seen again (just look at how many are remakes), but they can ALSO profit from all the ads they show you prior to the movies starting.

If it's okay for them to do that, then it's okay for me to do what I do. Not legally, of course, but from what I believe in. I see it from an "eye for an eye" perspective. Obviously the "consumer" isn't winning this battle seeing as how new legislation is being passed to make it illegal for you to fast forward through commercials, so I'm not too concerned about the moral aspect to it all.

These companies are far more immoral than I'll ever be.

Same here. I'm sooo glad i didn't pay to see RE:2 apocalypse or anchorman, or any number of other bad movies i may view in the future.

Hell,
I completely agree with everyone in the thread. I only go to the movie, 15-25 minutes after the posted time..
What ultimately makes the industry continue to do this is that lack of consumer discontent. My boss and the AMC corp. office CONSTANTLY stresses that the customer experience is VERY important, and that I should do anything to make them have the "best movie going experience possible." [our motto/slogan for workers]

I often hear people as they exit the theater, complaining how loud the other customers were, how crappy the food was, etc - BUT NONE OF THEM TOOK THE TIME TO COMPLAIN TO US. It's especially ironic, when the problem could be remedied by a lowly peon worker like myself.]

If you are really discontented about this - RIGHT NOW - express your digust about this issue and write a quick e-mail to the corporate office of your theater. Tell them that your money is spent elsewhere...



CONTACT INFO:

lowe's - http://www.enjoytheshow.com/contactus/index.cfm
amc - http://www.amctheatres.com/contactus/index.html
cinemark - http://www.cinemark.com/contactus.asp
regal - http://www.uatc.com/corporate/comments.html


- if you have more rants/q's about the movie industry, just ask me.

/paid $5.15 an hour to clean up after messy people @ your local AMC theater.
[at least, right now, I have tons of BOGO rentals @ blockbuster, due to the large cups have coupons on them.. if you want some of them, PM Me]

I'm only 30 but I can recall a time when even the idea of trailers was so offensive they would only show them AFTER the feature.. of course, I did grow up going to alot of drive-ins and movies, even as a really young child of 3-5 (thanks Mom!). The rise of commericals in the theatre is really only a natural progression from movie trailers - if they'll sit through one kind of product promotion, why not another?

I've chosen to stop frequenting cinemas that play commericals when-ever possible (not always easy, as I live in a smallish city of 240,000 people with roughly 15-20 screens), but have found myself quite happily entertained at our only art-house cinema. If you don't like commericals then exercise your choice not to watch them.. your continued quite acceptance only allows this propigation of commericalism to continue and thrive..

Hippie.