Should movie studios report ticket sales instead of money totals?

[yoda313]

So with movie ticket prices always increasing should movie studios be forced to report only total ticket sales instead of gross receipts? I believe that would really be a better measure for movies. With prices always going up its not a fair comparison.

What do you think?

[mats.hogberg]

...and the value of money steadily going down. Yes, $1000.000.000 today can't be compared to $1000.000.000 ten years ago.
OTOH - Box office figures rarely have anything to do with the quality of the movie. Just the investors should be interested.

/Mats

[gadgetguy]

It doesn't matter to me what they report. I go to the movies because of content, not because of how much money they spent or made on it.

[lordhutt]

I have been saying this for years. It should definitely be by ticket sales for all of the obvious reasons. After all of this time you would think there would be a website with this data.

[adam]

Sorry but that suggestion is just ridiculous. You expect each studio to coordinate with every single theatre outlet in the country...in the world? They need to keep track of every single ticket purchased? That would literally cost them millions of dollars, for what? They calculate gross receipts because those are the numbers that they actually have access to, and those are the numbers that the law requires them to maintain and release to the public. It also makes sense since the whole point of the film is to earn back the amount of money they put into it. Exactly how many tickets does it take to break even on a $100 mil film? Who knows? But anyone can tell you how much $ it takes.

Adjusting for inflation is trivial and the formula is universal (per region/currency/whatever) so you can easily compare the latest blockbuster release to a film released in 1960. There's no way to do that with ticket sales.

[AlanHK]

Exactly how many tickets does it take to break even on a $100 mil film? Who knows? But anyone can tell you how much $ it takes.

Most of us, except Hollywood producers, are not really interested in whether a film breaks even or not. We just want to know how good it is, and popularity, number of seats sold, is one indication of that.

And I'm very sure that the numbers are available, to enough accuracy to make valid comparisons anyway.

Book best-seller lists aren't counted in dollars, but copies sold, as are Top-40 music charts (though both have some question marks as to their honesty). TV (and radio) ratings are number of people watching, not how much they paid or didn't.

[guns1inger]

TV and Radio ratings are sample based, and given the popularity of lowest common denominator fair, come from a skewed demographic (or society really is on it's last legs, intellectually speaking).

Hell, if you want a popularity rating for movie, why not use number of downloads from pirate networks. The studios seem to have no problem coming up with very accurate numbers for that, and with financial equivalents.

[adam]

Book best-seller lists aren't counted in dollars, but copies sold, as are Top-40 music charts (though both have some question marks as to their honesty). TV (and radio) ratings are number of people watching, not how much they paid or didn't.

Exactly my point. Theatrical releases are nothing like tangible products like albums and books. Take a look at the Bilboard charts and read their FAQ. Or read on wikipedia or something about how book sales are calculated. They are done through point of sale reporting. That is, each and every single item has a barcode on it that was placed there by the manufacturer. At the time of sale, that data is stored and reported back to the manufacturer (actually a 3rd party responsible for the calculations.) This reporting is purely optional on the part of the retailer.

Now how do you do this with ticket sales for a movie? The tickets don't have barcodes on them. Individual theatres probably have an inventory system but its not going to be uniform across all theatres. Its nothing like having a barcode on the individual good that's passing over the counter.

[lordhutt]

Book best-seller lists aren't counted in dollars, but copies sold, as are Top-40 music charts (though both have some question marks as to their honesty). TV (and radio) ratings are number of people watching, not how much they paid or didn't.

Exactly my point. Theatrical releases are nothing like tangible products like albums and books. Take a look at the Bilboard charts and read their FAQ. Or read on wikipedia or something about how book sales are calculated. They are done through point of sale reporting. That is, each and every single item has a barcode on it that was placed there by the manufacturer. At the time of sale, that data is stored and reported back to the manufacturer (actually a 3rd party responsible for the calculations.) This reporting is purely optional on the part of the retailer.

Now how do you do this with ticket sales for a movie? The tickets don't have barcodes on them. Individual theatres probably have an inventory system but its not going to be uniform across all theatres. Its nothing like having a barcode on the individual good that's passing over the counter.

Dude, this is 2007(they have computers now ... I doubt it would take much effort to do this. The theaters are reporting how much money they make so how hard would it be to report how many tickets they sell.

[AlanHK]

Now how do you do this with ticket sales for a movie? The tickets don't have barcodes on them. Individual theatres probably have an inventory system but its not going to be uniform across all theatres. Its nothing like having a barcode on the individual good that's passing over the counter.

No, it's simpler, because each cinema only has a handful of "products" to sell at a time.

Of course cinemas know exactly how many tickets they sell. For one thing, they have to know how full the cinema is. They have a finite number of seats. They want to sell them all, but not oversell.

I'll bet that every computerised booking system (just about every cinema in the Western world at least) has a neatly formatted report function that presents all that.

Cinema owners want to know how popular a movie is so they can plan their screenings. They could care less if the movie is profitable for the studio or stars.

[gadgetguy]

I don't know if the theaters keep computerized records of the ticket sales or not but...

Cinema owners want to know how popular a movie is so they can plan their screenings.

That doesn't make sense to me. They don't know how popular a movie is until they've already screened it, and if you're talking about planning for the second or third week they only need to walk through their theaters (if it's a multiscreen) and look at how full the seats are. They don't need exact numbers for that. And they don't care how popular it is across the nation or the world, they only care how popular it is for their own audience.

[gll99]

Tickets are good for the theatre because a head count lets them know how many seats but also how much they might make on popcorn and drinks etc... It also allows them to tell advertisers how many people saw their ads. Head count is worth some $$ from advertisers.

On the other hand tickets won't tell the movie maker how much money a film makes because prices vary by region. I waited until today's Tuesday special to see Bourne Ultimatum and paid $4.20 for me and $8.95 for my wife which includes a popcorn and drink. If I wait another week or so it switches theatre and we can see the movie for $3.00 a piece. A lot cheaper than the normal $10 each just for the chair.

I think both counts serve a purpose but for the movie industry gross take is probably more important and accurate. As Adam said adjusting for inflation is a simple matter of applying a cpi statistical index using a base year price. (With respect to Statistical Agencies: The end user index is simple to use, the acquisition of accurate base data, calculations, formulas, processes, adjustments and industry specific knowledge to properly derive the indexes are far more complex)

This is an example of a broad based price adjuster but many commodity, industry and service areas are measured so in many cases more specific price indexes are also available at lower levels.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

[AlanHK]

That doesn't make sense to me. They don't know how popular a movie is until they've already screened it, and if you're talking about planning for the second or third week they only need to walk through their theaters (if it's a multiscreen) and look at how full the seats are. They don't need exact numbers for that. And they don't care how popular it is across the nation or the world, they only care how popular it is for their own audience.

Yes, it's so much easier and more accurate to guess the number of people sitting in a darkened cinema than to look at the number of tickets sold.

And they don't need to "count" the money. They can just put it all in a bucket and see how heavy it is. Why bother to use their computerised booking system?

[Richard_G]

But does it matter how, or even if, it is reported? Is anyone interested? Do Ford and General Motors religiously report how many cars they've sold?

I know a number of people in the 'industry' and am told that actors seem to be the most insecure people in the world. They, and probably the accountants and investors, want to know how popular a film (or movie if you insist) is purely to confirm to their own egos that the public still love them. Why else are there all these big award ceremonies? I can't think of any other industry or profession where people get awards for simply doing the job they are paid to do. They do a good job and, consequently, get paid an enormous sum of money, so why do they need the back slapping as well?

[AlanHK]

But does it matter how, or even if, it is reported? Is anyone interested?

Actually, I look at the Tomatometer first when wondering if a movie is worth my time.

[gadgetguy]

Yes, it's so much easier and more accurate to guess the number of people sitting in a darkened cinema than to look at the number of tickets sold.

That's my point, they don't need accurate counts to schedule screentime. A quick look will tell you if the movie is still popular, you don't need to count heads.

[AlanHK]

Yes, it's so much easier and more accurate to guess the number of people sitting in a darkened cinema than to look at the number of tickets sold.

That's my point, they don't need accurate counts to schedule screentime. A quick look will tell you if the movie is still popular, you don't need to count heads.

Yeah, why bother looking at your daily report when you can just pop into the cinema for each session morning noon and night instead. It's so much easier. Even better when you own a chain of cinemas, you can spend all day wandering from one to another to take headcounts.

[gadgetguy]

You're right, no way you would want to mix with the unwashed masses when you can hide in your office and read boring reports. And since you have no employees running the projectors and standing there waiting to clean up at the end of every movie, there's no one to help you at your other locations. After all, that would require that you actually talk to the riffraff that work for you.

[AlanHK]

You're right, no way you would want to mix with the unwashed masses when you can hide in your office and read boring reports. And since you have no employees running the projectors and standing there waiting to clean up at the end of every movie, there's no one to help you at your other locations. After all, that would require that you actually talk to the riffraff that work for you.

Your method would be fine for Cinema Paradiso. Not for a multiplex.
Though why you'd prefer to waste employees' time trying to guess how many people there were when you could just print it out and know exactly, I fail to understand. But you obviously can't admit that.

Anyway, looking at the poll results, it seems 6:1 would prefer to know tickets sold rather than dollars earned.

But no mind, they won't change whatever we think.

[gadgetguy]

Your method would be fine for Cinema Paradiso. Not for a multiplex.
Though why you'd prefer to waste employees' time trying to guess how many people there were when you could just print it out and know exactly, I fail to understand. But you obviously can't admit that.

It's not that I can't admit anything, it's that you keep missing my point. You don't need numbers. Nobody has to guess at anything. A full theater is obvious, a half filled theater is obvious, and an empty theater is obvious. That's all that's necessary to schedule screen time.

Anyway, looking at the poll results, it seems 6:1 would prefer to know tickets sold rather than dollars earned.

But no mind, they won't change whatever we think.

That's for sure.

[AlanHK]

It's not that I can't admit anything, it's that you keep missing my point. You don't need numbers. Nobody has to guess at anything.

Your point was previously that the numbers were too difficult to find, not that they weren't necessary. I dispute both claims, by the way.

A full theater is obvious, a half filled theater is obvious, and an empty theater is obvious. That's all that's necessary to schedule screen time.

Cinemas come in more than one size. Especially multiplexes have a mix of sizes and have to schedule and rearrange the screenings to match or anticipate demand.

Anyway, this is not really going anywhere or indeed very interesting. Feel free to have the last word if it makes you feel better.

[adam]

There are inherant differences between a service and a good. You know how labels do their calculation of items sold? They estimate it based on returns (often expected returns only) and items shipped. They are only able to make this calculation because they know the exact number of potential sales in the marketplace at any given time. You don't have any of this info with a service like theatrical viewings. There's no way to estimate how many viewings you'll get out of 1 reel rental without active participation from the individual theatres. So as others have suggested, it should be trivial for theatres to report these figures right? They have computers, they all have software for this, so what's the problem? Well there's a huge problem. Do a websearch for boxoffice software and you will see that there are literally thousands of commercial softwares for managing a boxoffice. Are people really so naive to believe that all it takes is for each theatre to say ok, we sold this many tickets for Bourne Ultimatum and for that info to be meaningfully interpreted and then reported back to the studios and on to the public? How many tickets are sold in a run? How many thousands? Does anybody really believe that this info is going to be reported without being entirely automated? Of course not. More importantly, does anyone believe that theatres are ever going to bother with this reporting unless a) it benefits them or b) they are forced to do it?

The music industry is the perfect example of how this reporting HAS to work. Retailers have thousands of different software for tracking their sales and inventories too. But Nielson Soundscan has completely uniformed and automated the reporting process. Reporting stores simply scan the UPC of the item as they would anyway. All of the information about the item, its genre, price, store location, etc.. is sent to Nielson at the applicable reporting period. Nielson is then in the business of reporting this info. They make their money from the retailers who PAY to use their software. Why would they pay to report this info? The reason is because they are in the retail business and there is always a close relationship between retailer and manufacturer when dealing in a volume industry. The music industry is constantly adjusting its marketing based on industry reports, and this is because there are sooo many different products to market. There is substantial money to be made or lost by sending more or less of a type of music (or individual album) to this location versus that location. The retailers provide this info because, by working with the labels, music sells better generally. And the ONLY reason all of this is possible is because the reporting is automated through the use of UPC stickers on each individual product.

It is all the exact opposite with theatres and studios. There is virtually no relationship. The theatre decides which films to rent and when to pull them. There's a small number of films in any given rotation, there's no deciding when and where to send the next 100,000 shipments. Neither the theatre nor the studio gives a damn how many individual tickets are sold for any movie over a given time. There is no incentive for anyone to do anything with these numbers. Having a system for coordinating these results between theatre and studio is not going to help them sell more tickets and its not going to help them better market their films.

[gadgetguy]

Your point was previously that the numbers were too difficult to find, not that they weren't necessary. I dispute both claims, by the way.

I never asserted they were too difficult to find, and I don't think they are. I was responding strictly to your comment about being necessary to plan screen time. Reporting aggregate ticket sales figures or gross receipts, whether hard or easy to come by, aren't much help to the individual theater owner in planning screen time. It doesn't matter if it's the most popular movie in the world. If nobody's coming to see it in your theater you can't devote your bigger audience screens to it.

Cinemas come in more than one size. Especially multiplexes have a mix of sizes and have to schedule and rearrange the screenings to match or anticipate demand.

While that's true, it isn't rocket science. It's not unusual for them to open an additional screen to accommodate unexpected turnout any more than it's unusual to drop a movie that no longer has an audience. Even using exact numbers it's still a guess since a big box one day doesn't mean it will be that way the next.

Anyway, this is not really going anywhere or indeed very interesting. Feel free to have the last word if it makes you feel better.

I have found it interesting. Thanks.

[robertazimmerman]

Clearly, the people who believe that the numbers of sold tickets is a more important factor are not business people.

Would you rather sell 1,000,000 items and make 10 cents on each, or 100,000 items and make $2.00 each? Only the fool would pick the former option (assuming it is strictly a financial decision and not a marketing ploy or a grab for market share).

Many companies have gone bankrupt as a result of selling, selling, selling and ignoring the cost of each sale.

Roberta

[gll99]

AlanHK wrote

Anyway, looking at the poll results, it seems 6:1 would prefer to know tickets sold rather than dollars earned.

I think this poll was highly biased from the start. :P

1) Every pollster loves the "yes" side (see point 3). The "YES" should have been the existing condition which is gross sales. It's interesting that the highest grossing movies are also the most popular and most viewed by the public. A positive spin would have increased the votes subtantially.

2) The yes option has the words "true measure" which will subliminally sway voters to choose that option

3) The "NO" is negative and we usually want to at least appear positive so our inclination is to choose "yes" or if we want to totally cop out, one of the other sit on the fence or generic choices.

4) The "NO" choice implies that the large $$$ numbers are favoured by the movie industry because it attracts attention to their product so choosing 'NO" makes you feel that you are siding with the industry. this creates an natural aversion to choosing this option.

5) Some people (especially new users) can't bring themselves to vote against a mod. yoda influenced the results by voting in the first post.

should movie studios be forced to report only total ticket sales instead of gross receipts?

Notice the leading and inciting word "forced". Anytime you can say "yes lets force that greedy movie industry to do something that they don't want instead of something they want and it won't cost me anything then I vote for it"... "YES".

If possible, the pollster should remain neutral until the bulk of the tallies are in.

Points 4 and 5 are why so many chose a more neutral answer.

6) I voted "yes" 264 times (there's a bug) but then I changed my mind

[handyguy]

Studios use 'creative' accounting practices. I'm sure they would do that with ticket sales too.