New alarming signal about cinema attendance, in trouble since the Covid-19 crisis. According to figures from the National Film Center (CNC), in September 2022 only 7.38 million admissions were registered, a drop of 34.3% compared to September 2019, before the pandemic. The CNC points out that this is the second worst month of September since the beginning of the monthly statistics, in 1980, not counting the 5.62 million admissions in 2020, in the midst of covid.
However, hope had risen at the start of the 2021 school year: A year after the dark year due to coronavirus, movie theaters saw a 60% increase in attendance in September, compared to September 2020. The new figures show that the trend yes it won’t last as September 2022 saw a 20.7% drop compared to September 2021.
Too high prices, platform competition…
Several parameters are taken into account to explain the attrition of darkrooms. According to a CNC survey released last May, 38% of those surveyed mention having lost the habit, 33% talk about the price of the ticket and 26% indicate that they prefer other means. Especially the streaming platforms.
Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video… The Covid-19 crisis has benefited these new audiovisual actors. Netflix thus gained 15.8 million subscribers worldwide with the first confinement, at the beginning of 2020. In addition, many distributors now choose to broadcast their films directly on these SVOD services, without going through the cinema box. This is particularly the case for Disney:
“Disney was 39% of the box office in France in 2019,” Alain Le Diberder, a specialist in the sector, confided to BFMTV.com. “If you book a quarter of your programming for Disney+, your share drops to 30%. . And that’s what we’re seeing.”
Source: BFM TV
