Building theatre patronage : management and merchandising (1927)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

Newspaper Advertising 331 The day will come when practically everywhere the amusement rate and the run-of-paper rate will be the same. The editor of one of the leading newspaper trade weeklies in a series of convincing editorials picked out real facts, speaking from the viewpoint of the newspaper's interests, and emphasizing the fact that the motion-picture industry is one of the ranking industries of the country, went on record that motionpicture advertising is entitled to run-of-paper rate. Arguments. In many cases an amusement rate no higher than run-ofpaper rate will be allowed when the local theatre advertiser can present convincing arguments in the language of the newspaper representatives. If newspaper advertising were absolutely indispensable, so that the theatre would close its doors if newspapers did not carry the theatre advertisement, this might not be a case where arguments would avail. But the theatre uses more mediums of advertising than any other retailer. It is to the advantage of the newspaper to offer a rate which will be equitable, so that the newspaper will become a more important part in the theatre's advertising campaigns. To penalize the theatre with an exorbitant rate will mean that the full selling value that the newspaper has will never be appreciated, because sufficient space will not be used to give it a fair trial. Consequently, any discussion of rates is to the advantage of the newspaper as well as to the theatre. How did it ever happen that exorbitant rates were charged for amusement advertising? Tradition. The answer takes us back to the distant days when the theatre locally owned was rented by touring companies. The house management took a flat rental and the touring manager took the risks. He was an outsider. He was seldom in a town for longer than one week. What the local newspaper asked of this outsider did not interest the local management. Exorbitant rates took no money out of his pocket — in fact, he might have been a part owner of the newspaper.