Canadian Film Weekly Year Book of the Canadian Motion Picture Industry (1952)

SEATING EATING capacity in Canada’s theaS tres rose to 1,054,978 in 1950 from 1,004,849 in 1949, a gain of 50,129 chairs. While the grand total is a new high, the increase was not the greatest recorded in a 12-month period. In 1949 the increase was 58,402, exclusive o! Newfoundland, which became Canada’s tenth province that year; in 1948 the gain 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. In 1949, the year Newfoundland joined Canada, its theatres and their 15,956 seats were added to the total for the first time. In 1950 these theatres had 19,416 seats and both figures have been included in the grand total for the two years, but have been left out when figuring the gain each year to give a clearer picture of the progress made in those years. The 1,054,978 seats represent the combined total in all of Canada’s 2,387 35 and 16 mm. houses. The Canadian Motion Picture Distributcers Association, which deals only with 35 mm. houses, gave 1,803 as the number of theatres in 1950, and these had 932,954 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 12 years 396,804 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, 479 in 1949 and 625 in 1950. (The large increase from 1947 to 1948 is statistical, rather than physical, for the DBS included the community-run 76 theatres for the first time in the latter year.) But the 1950 total of 1,054,978 theatre chairs does not tell the whole story of Canada’s) movie accommodation. Drive-ins jumped from 30 to 62 and had room for 31,523 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. To get some idea of the 1951 increase and the 1952 possibilities, one must know that Canada opened 79 new theatres, among them 18 drive-ins, during 1951, and that there were 66 theatres under construction, including 11 driveins at the beginning of 1952. There were also 83 theatres projected, 18 of them drive-ins. The ban on the use of steel has slowed down all amusement building. YEAR SEATS W938) sssessicseoes ch me 640,366 1939 sescsenscudas 658,174 1940 676,652 1941 697,654 BD. ax cessenndaspicestponan xaith tiahamseneeaen 702,833 1943... 709,082 OEE | ascreapececpauniieecdsaarain sore pemoraity 712,998 1945... 721,700 1946 ee. 758,642 i KY. 57 ane 834,369 NOES) | secccnasasie Hid vardreioieqe neta okt 930,491 D9 4D: cnsioenaations aye nei sisenie 4s ys'ss da mbioe 1,004,849 1950) ccrmcasan seiawsre maw Que aes 1,054,978 issued by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics and those for 1949 and 1950 include Newfoundland, which became Canada’s tenth province in the former year, In 1949 Newfoundland theatres had 15,956 seats and in 1950 19,416 seats. This table does not include drive-ins, the first of which opened in Canada in 1946. For taxation and other purposes it is considered that one car is equivalent to 21 seats in a standard-type theatre and from this can be judged the amount this type of exhibition has increased seating statistics. Car capacity of drive-ins in 1946 was 705; 1947, 5,348; 1948, 9,975; 1949, 15,924; and 1950, 31,523. At the end of 1951 there was accommodation for 36,700 cars, according to figures tabulated by the Canadian Film Weekly and estimates are that by the end of 1952 there will be total space for 43,400 cars. CONSTRUCTION HE value of theatre construction f and alteration awards let in Canada in 1951 was $2,713,900, bringing the total for the six years since wartime restrictions were lifted at the