Boxoffice (Jul-Sep 1939)

RADIO CONTINUES AS A SERIOUS COMPETITOR, THEATRES RULE IN NEW "BOXOFFICE" SURVEY All Radio Seen as Rival For Theatre Dollar; Film Names Hurt Radio broadcasts in general offer serious competition for the exhibitor, and those air programs that contain film players are nearly 20 per cent more competitive, the latest in the series of Boxoffice industry surveys reveals. The score runs from 65 per cent who deem radio competitive in general broadcasts to 82 per cent who consider radio shows with film players as rivals for the boxoffice dollar. The question put directly to the nation’s theatre men, and the results: A. Is Radio Generally Comi>etitive? Yes: 65% No: 35% B. Is Radio With Film Players Competition? Yes: 82%, No: 18% And with it the answer to both sides in the long-drawn controversy over the effect of radio and radio-film broadcasts on the country’s theatre grosses; an answer that carries many exhibitor conclusions, among the most interesting of which argue that radio broadcasting by film players: (1) Depresses the theatre grosses in proportion to the boxoffice rating of the players. (2) Is so arranged that on most nights of the week it cuts into both the early and late shows. (3) Fails to develop additional customers in anything like the number it keeps away. (4) Often satiates the public with film players to the point they no longer have exceptional drawing power. (5) Produces competition the average exhibitor is powerless to combat. (6) Dissipates the energy of the players over too wide a field with the result that their film performances drop in quality after they start broadcasting. (7) Presents the players in a bad light as the result of hastily prepared and illadvised scripts. (8) Damages all exhibitors for the sake of extra earnings by a few players who have to give most of such additional income to federal and state governments in taxes. Remedy suggestions vary from complete boycott of film star radio activity at the time of producer contracts to stronger studio supervision of scripts and broadcasting hours to provide a minimum of theatre competition. Seriously advanced is an exhibitor campaign on an individual basis to cancel films with “offending” players when a choice is possible between those and films of players not engaging in radio activity, and an effort to give the best playdates to films featuring nonradio personalities. The radio “film gossip” commentators come in for severe treatment, many exhibitors contending they are more injurious than all of the film-player broadcasts combined. The remedy suggested most often in this connection is complete refusal of studio privileges and cessation of “gratuities” in the way of acting and story favors. Radio with film players appears more seriously competitive to theatres in the New England and midwest territories, and in general in the eastern and central areas. The geographical breakdown by territories and states appears on the opposite page. Typical of comment from exhibitors are the following excerpts from the questionnaires : Suggests Trade Committee For Radio Problems I believe the radio competition problem could be solved by a permanent committee of exhibitors, producers and distributors who would devote attention to radio and other trade problems. Exhibitors could bring their complaints to this committee, which could seek ways and means of softening the blow from competitive programs, especially where film names are concerned. At least this would be an intelligent approach to a problem that has little discernible beginning and certainly no apparent ending. MONTANA EXHIBITOR Says Commentators Have Killed Many Good Ones Something should be done to keep the columnists and radio commentators from prejudicing the public against certain pictures before they are even released. It is an unfair practice, as a picture that will please metropolitan audiences may be a complete flop in the provinces, and vice versa. The unfair ratings given by some radio commentators have killed many good pictures for us. This will cease when producers close studio lots to the gossip mongers and quit handing out acting and story plums to the air panhandlers. SOU'TH CAROLINA EXHIBITOR Radio "Real Competitor" Any Way You Take It Radio, with or without, but particularly with, film stars is real competition. I have heard former fans of stars say they had no more desire to see these stars in pictures, their reason being that they had enough of them. Some said they had become bored by stars constantly on the air. Others I have known who took the attitude that they had as soon sit at home Eight-Points in Damage Cited by Answers to National Question and hear the stars on a radio program as go pay money to see them in a movie. Either way you take it, the appearance of movie stars on radio programs is a definite comp>etition and injurious to boxoffice receipts. TEXAS EXHIBITOR They All Hurt, the Big Ones Most The bigger they are at the boxoffice the more they hurt when they go on the radio. If they’re no good in the medium they hurt because their boxoffice draw is killed. If they’re good there they hurt because they are competition to the theatre. I wish some of the money-grabbers in the star brackets could be in my theatre and a broadcasting station at the same time when one of their pictures is playing. They would be lonesome, as lonesome as I am, but they might learn something. MISSOURI EXHIBITOR Cites How Broadcasts Could Be Beneficial I believe that film players on radio broadcasts would help rather than hinder if they could appear at any other time than picture show hours. OKLAHOMA EXHIBITOR Deems Exhibitor Powerless To Combat Competition The film stars on radio hurt most because there is nothing we exhibitors can do about it. We can’t fight something we can’t come to grips with. The answer is up to the producers and the stars themselves. If the stars want to spread their talents and efforts so thin that they suffer in both fields and the producers want to let them do it, I guess we’ll just have to wait until they both wake up — if we don’t go broke first. MASSACHUSETTS EXHIBITOR Sees Too Much Advance Publicity on Films My opinion is that there is too much advance publicity on pictures, especially via the radio and fan magazines, that gives the public a chance to form their opinion on pictures before they ever see them. If you will stop and think several years back before all of this ballyhoo on pictures by Jimmy Fidler and others like him, you will remember that people came to the theatre to see what the picture (Continued on next page) 8 BOXOFFICE :: September 30, 1939