cinelog.org

A sign of our changing times, AMC has now downsized their daily print ad, in “The Orange County Register”, to a less than 2″ square, which directs readers to the company’s website and show time phone line. This comes on the heels of a similar downgrade by Cinemark and hints at where Regal’s ever shrinking block ad might be heading. Hardly “front page news”, as print media advertising has been in decline for over a decade, but the theatre industry had been one of the few newspaper holdouts.

 

Time was, a given newspaper’s entertainment section was a reliable gauge of success. From the full page ads of major chains, to the co-op block listings of independents, the local paper provided a visual ranking of exhibitors in your area. A near stock ticker, one could track the rise and fall of operators/theatres by the changing size, quality, position, and frequency of their print ads. Even the rise of the industry, as a whole, could be seen, as cinemas slowly replaced live theatre and vaudeville listings, during the early twentieth century; moving on to fully dominate the entertainment section by the close of the century. Now, with most independents having fully abandoned the format and the “big three” moving away from print advertising , we are witnessing the literal end of an era.

 

The cinema industry may finally be joining the digital revolution, on numerous fronts, but, I, for one, will miss the days of paper and ink.

6/28/09 Update:  By pure chance, I managed to scan AMC’s final Orange County Register listing. Within a day of this post, the company discontinued their ads altogether, including weekends. There still remains a sizeable print ad in The Los Angeles Times, but the company seems to have forsaken the more localized Register.

On a personal note, I can’t help but recall the countless mornings I cut out the Register’s showtime listings, as part of my daily management duties. Edwards, Mann, SoCal Cinemas, United Artists, Century, and even Studio  Adultland (as a humorous gesture) would be neatly sniped from the paper and posted on a box office clipboard, alongside AMC’s ad. Now, a task that has slipped in to memory, along with the very print ads that were involved.