MY COMMENTARY:
The growth of online content, while still prevalent, has not led to the demise of movie theatres that many had predicted. Cinemas and the cinema experience is the exemplar model of what it means to spend in an “experience economy”. It’s the experience of both the product — and of the services surrounding them (food, etc.) — that really matters. As evidenced with the wildly popular movie, Avatar, every person who saw that movie (at $10-$15 each) certainly came away with an experience to remember — whether or not they liked the actual movie.
Cinema viewing is an incredible economic model that will only continue to expand, as theatres have largely proven economically counter-cyclical today. While going to a movie typically falls under “discretionary spend”, this experience often trumps many alternatives based on the value. And so movie theatres, for the most part, continue to do well.
