Brace yourself for more ads before movies at AMC theaters, reports say
Brace yourself for more ads before movies at AMC theaters, reports say
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AMC, Regal investing $2.2B to upgrade movie theater experience
The eight biggest movie theater chains in the U.S. and Canada — including AMC and Regal — will invest $2.2 billion to make upgrades.
Straight Arrow News
Moviegoers, brace yourselves. The dreaded advertisements before a movie are expected to get longer at AMC Cinemas, according to multiple reports.
The cinema chain is joining major competitors in running even more commercials starting in July under a new partnership with cinema advertising company National CineMedia (NCM), multiple outlets including Bloomberg and the New York Times reported. The move comes in an effort to increase revenue without raising ticket prices as cinemas continues to struggle financially and recover from the COVID-19 losses, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
Under the deal, AMC will play commercials in what is known as the 'platinum spot,' the part right before the movie begins, in complete contrast to its 2019 decision in which it had shunned NCM's proposal to place ads in that spot. National CineMedia had gone on to sign agreements with two of AMC's rivals, Regal and Cinemark, that year, according to NYT.
"AMC has no plan to introduce commercial advertising close to the start of a movie's commencement at its theatres in the United States, nor does AMC envision entering into such an arrangement with NCM anytime in the foreseeable future," the cinema chain had said in a September 2019 statement. AMC further said the concept "of commencing a platinum advertising position during the end of trailer play," was "flatly rejected" "because of AMC's concerns that U.S. moviegoers would react quite negatively to the concept."
AMC prepared for backlash
While AMC did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for a comment on the latest development, the chain in a statement to NYT suggested it was prepared for criticism and backlash, noting the decision would not impact the customer's wallets.
'For the past five years, AMC has sought out crucial revenue that is not reliant on the increase of base ticket prices,' the company said in the statement to NYT, adding 'while AMC was initially reluctant to bring this to our theaters, our competitors have fully participated for more than five years without any direct impact to their attendance.'
Both AMC and NCM are expected to share revenues from the new pre-movie advertising window, according to The Hollywood Reporter. National CineMedia also did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.
It is not known how long the pre-show and advertisements would run and what kind of ads viewers can expect to see.
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
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