• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 2 hours ago

Streaming platforms may secretly be rejoicing amidst headlines showing movie theaters' record-setting summer box-office results.

This is due to an underlying business factor: declining "scale" of theatrical movie attendance.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16 of this year, 568.4 million tickets were sold in U.S. movie theaters -- a 30% decline versus the same period in 2019. At the start of 2020, everything changed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

While the pandemic period changed many businesses, the most heavily impacted were the large-scale, live consumer entertainment venues and events including theme parks, musical concerts and movie theaters.

According to a report in The New York Times, one estimate says 248 million fewer movie tickets were sold in a period of seven-and-a-half-months for the year ending in August versus 2019.

This was largely attributable to the absence of many older “casual” theatergoers. Those who remained were "hardcore" young moviegoers ages 12-24 and 12-34, who tend to more steady and consistent in their attendance.

It’s those casual moviegoers who now find it easy to see some -- but not all -- movies at home. This benefits premium streaming platforms including those owned by big media companies that also produce theatrical movies that run in movie theaters.

For those studios, this is an ideal overall movie marketplace: making more box-office revenues -- possibly with fewer releases (although some higher individual production costs).

Shifting movie and TV production resources to their needy and still young streaming platforms is the goal -- especially in competition with the still soaring film/TV output of Netflix, Prime Video and others.

They are not abandoning the theatrical business, however -- not at all.

Although movie-theater attendance has declined, domestic box-office revenue in 2026 -- for the first time since 2019 -- is on track to cross the $10 billion mark this year, up 20% over a year ago.

The bigger concern and focus are their live, linear TV networks -- which continue their steady fall.

According to many analysts, the difference is that the movie theater business is in "cyclical recovery" while live, linear TV is in a "structural terminal decline."

Look for a future media business focus that is slightly altered compared to what you might expect.