Film Weekly year book of the Canadian motion picture industry (1951)

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SEATING SEATING capacity in Canada’s theatres rose to 1,004,849 in 1949 from 930,491 in 1948, a gain of 74,358 chairs. However, in this year Newfoundland became Canada’s tenth province and its 15,956 seats were added for the first time. Subtracting this number for purposes of comparison, the actual gain is 58,402. While the grand total is a new high, the increase was not the greatest recorded in a 12month period. The 1948 increase was 96,131 and 1947’s was 75,718. In 1946 and 1945 the additions were relatively small, the first increasing the total by 36,942 and the last by 8,702. The 1,004,849 seats represent the combined total in all of Canada’s 2,200 35 and 16 mm. houses. The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, which deals only with 35 mm. houses, gave 1,715 as the number of theatres in 1949, exclusive of Newfoundland, and these had 898,536 seats. The adding of seats began in 1945, when the government, following the end of hostilities, raised the amount allowed for building alterations, and the building boom, which added several hundred theatres to Canada since it began, got under way with the lifting of restrictions on construction in 1946. In 11 years 346,675 theatre chairs were added to Canada’s total, the 1938 figure having been 658,174. It should be understood that this figure, although an impressive one, is not as big as it sounds. Starting in 1946 the Dominion Bureau of Statistics made a distinction between 16 mm. operators who move their equipment from place to place and those who remain in one location. Prior to 1946 all 16 mm. operators were classified as Itinerants but that year and after permanent locations were classified as theatres and their chairs added to the Canadian total. In 1946 there were 98 such theatres, and these increased to 163 in 1947, 331 in 1948 and 479 in 1949. (The large increase from 1947 to 1948 is statistical, rather than physical, for the DBS included the community-run theatres for the first time in the latter year.) But the 1949 total of 1,004,849 theatre chairs does not tell the whole story of Canada’s movie accommodation. Driveins jumped from 15 to 30 and had room for 15,924 cars. The Ontario theatre inspection branch, in place of its seat tax on regular theatres, charges 50 cents per car, with the view that each car contains three people. The average seating capacity utilized in 1949 was 30.0 per cent. To get some idea of the 1950 increase and the 1951 possibilities, one must know that Canada added 148 new thea¬ tres, among them 33 drive-ins, and that there are 116 theatres under con¬ struction, which includes eight drive-ins. There are also 106 theatres projected, 22 of them drive-ins. The new ban on the use of steel will stop all amusement building. CONSTRUCTION WHAT was the bill to the Cana¬ dian motion picture industry for new theatres and repairs, additions and equipment re¬ placement for the five-year period from “decontrol to recontrol” ? Past a certain point, your guess is as good as anyone’s. Let’s take the Dominion Bureau of Sta¬ tistics’ figures for “Theatres, Amuse¬ ment Halls, Etc.” They do not show separate figures for “Theatres” com¬ pared with “Amusement Halls, Etc.” Nor do they explain what is classified as theatres and what as amusement halls. Totalling the DBS figures from 1946 to 1949 inclusive and adding a 1950 figure equivalent to the 1949 one, we get an amount over $70,000,000. The nearest total to compare it with is that made up of the yearly figures for new construction and alterations, etc. from Maclean’s Building Reporter — over $30,000,000. Maclean's totals all theatre construc¬ tion awards at the time made. The figures are thus estimates and the final cost is usually higher. The DBS figures are of the final cost but they are not for theatres alone. Using the Maclean’s figures and 25 per cent for the rise in costs, we get $40,000,000 for construc¬ tion. The next mystery, which neither Mac¬ lean’s nor the DBS clears up in their 73