The post pandemic AV Landscape is one of huge audience fragmentation with the growth of streaming services, whether subscription or advertising funded leading to substantial declines in linear TV audiences.
Lockdown initially led to a surge in commercial impacts, however as time went on people soon tired of traditional TV schedules and people switched large portions of their viewing to “On Demand” services.
The Cinema industries enforced closure meant that there was a hole in its audiences viewing and they were crying out for quality content, they were happy to switch their expenditure to subscriptions in order to scratch this itch. Some feared that the industry would never recover from this, especially as some film distributors changed their release windows in order to service their own subscription services.
In 2019 there were a total of 176.1m cinema admissions across the UK. COVID led to a 75% drop in 2020, 2021 rallied slightly but continued lockdowns meant recovery was limited – admissions finishing at 74m.
2022 admissions were up by 58.4% year on year at 117.3m. Whilst this figure is still down by a third when compared to 2019 it’s definitely a huge step in the right direction. When comparing linear TV impacts across the same period there is a 20% decline. Amongst the key 16-34 demographic this figure is 45%, conversely the profile of cinema audiences has got younger post pandemic (though this proportion is always subject to the film product on offer).
2023 admissions are forecast to increase by around 15% to 135m whilst linear TV impacts are set to continue to decline, with younger audiences being particularly affected.
One of Marketing Week’s “Six Trends that will Shape Media in 2023” is the level of attention afforded to advertising and that this metric will be afforded more attention. Cinema advertising has consistently proven to deliver higher attention levels than any other media. DCM have just published a piece of research on this (Centre of Attention : https://www.dcm.co.uk/)
With a vast array of film content set for release this year there is something to appeal to all audiences. If not a starring role then surely cinema is at least worthy of a cameo appearance…
Steve Jenkins
AV Director