• USA Today, Wednesday, December 7, 2005 10:45 AM

Good news for movie-theater owners: A new forecast indicates it's very likely that more ads will be shown in theaters, at least for the foreseeable future. For moviegoers, of course, that's bad news. But they'll have to put up with the inconvenience because lackluster theater attendance in 2005 depressed industry revenues, forcing theater owners to search for other revenue streams. Ad forecaster ZenithOptimedia said this week that spending on in-theater advertising increased 18 percent in 2005 and probably will go up by about 15 percent every year through 2008. Digital projection, installed in many state-of-the-art theaters these days, has made the ad packages easy to update, swap out, and tailor to specific audiences, leading to these ads' rising popularity in the industry. Robert Bucksbaum, president of industry research firm ReelSource, says he "detests" the pre-movie commercials, but concedes they are "definitely the wave of the future."

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