Commentary

Hating The High Cost Of Entertainment -- In Theory

Entertainment costs keep rising, even as consumers and business executives bemoan specific products.

Take 3D movies. Criticism of many 3D movies continues from consumers, film business executives and analysts. But things are different when it comes down to actual consumer transactions and ticket fees. The National Association of Theater Owners says average movie ticket prices hit a new high of $8.38 for the three months ending in June. This was 3% higher than $8.12 a year earlier. A big number of 3D movie releases occur in the summer, where many high-profile expensive films reside.

Revenue from 3D movies during the second quarter was $1.29 billion, a 73% increase from $745 million in the same period a year ago.

Of course we don’t need to tell you about rising consumer costs for TV. The FCC says the price of expanded basic cable went up almost continuously for 16 years, with a compound average annual growth rate of 6.1%.

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Consumers may complain and complain, but their actions say otherwise. While there has been some cord-shaving and cord-cutting, much of the high-priced network TV programming consumer business remains well intact.

Still, when it comes to 3D on home TV screens some of the complaints are getting through, especially in light of overall growing cable, satellite, and telco TV bills. Recently ESPN said it was turning off its 3D TV network. Other 3D TV programming efforts could be heading the same way.

Cable, satellite and telco distributors have been looking at offering scaled down TV network packaging for years, especially with the growing sense that many consumers are fed up or just can’t find the economic means to pay $75 to $150 a month for some average programming packages.

Have they been successful? We don’t know those details.

Don’t worry. Big entertainment companies are ready to take more shots – with the coming of 4K TVs and after that 8K TVs. All that isn’t coming cheap. And though we’ll swear that enough is enough, we will probably buy in.

1 comment about "Hating The High Cost Of Entertainment -- In Theory ".
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  1. Thomas Siebert from BENEVOLENT PROPAGANDA, July 22, 2013 at 5:46 p.m.

    After getting burned a couple times by films that were too dark and ineffectively three-dimensional, I now only pony up the surcharge to see 3D films that were actually shot in 3D -- Hugo, Life of Pi, Great Gatsby. These pictures were gorgeous and worth the extra couple bucks. All the movies that were bumped up to 3D in post production are a frustrating waste.

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