What keeps John Fithian awake at night

I found out the answer to the above question in a chat I had with John, the head of the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO - yes, but without the nukes), a few years ago. No, it was not digital cinema, nor film piracy/theft and not even Al Quaida targeting your local multiplex (but, yes they had one scare). It was the aging cinema population.

At this year the message from both Fithian and MPAA's Glickman was upbeat: 2006 had been better than 2005, box office takings had gone up, the summer was full of sequels that would drive the hoards back to the popcorn tills, the death of cinema was greatly exaggerated. What no one mentioned was that attendance in 2006 was DOWN on 2007, it's just ticket price inflation that grew the box office. And when I talked to cinema owners, they were more downbeat about the prospects beyond Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, etc. Kids just aren't going to the cinemas. It's not cool. Not like mobiles or MySpace.

What to do in this scenario? Embrace the oldies, that's what. At least, that's the message in a perceptive article from the Friday's Film section of the UK's The Guardian newspaper, by the very knowledgeable Geoffrey Macnab (he also writes for Time Out and helps program the National Film Theatre in London). Here is what he has to say:

The older audience is already the fastest growing sector in the market: recent research suggested that close to 60% of those clamouring to see Stephen Frears' The Queen were 55 or over - "77% female, mean age 59" is the official breakdown of the audience. Tellingly, only 1% of the film's audience were 18 and 19-year-olds and, if the statistics are to be believed, not a single per cent were 15 and 16-year-olds.

Films like Mrs Henderson Presents (audience: 62% female, mean age 59), The History Boys (57% male, mean age 51), Gosford Park, Calendar Girls, Ladies In Lavender and Miss Potter have also successfully attracted the older cinemagoer. "Five years ago, 38% of the cinema audience was 35 or over, whereas last year it was 46%," says Film Distributors' Association chief executive Mark Batey.

This is the audience that the digital cinema of the future will have to cater to. [Notice also that these films are cheaper to make and therefor have a better chance of a good return-on-investment ratio]. I myself do not think that cinema will ever die, but I fear that it is in danger of becoming jazz. That is, appreciated only by a small number of people in vanishingly marginal elite venues and too often looking back rather than innovating.

The fact that the future belongs to the old timers has already been spotted by the particularly clever exhibitors, such as Vue's Tim Richards. Yes, he is quoted in the article, but he has made these observations earlier too. I had a chance to speak to him briefly at both the BSAC conference before ShoWest and in Vegas. Vue may not have been first or even second to set up an all-digital multiplex in the UK, but when they do I bet that they will have the most innovative programming when it comes ot catering to the widest possible age bracket.