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runs at a time in the 20,000 theatres. Averaging all of them, running time is but a very few hours per day. Rentals are high, but sales expense eats up an enormous fraction of receipts. And these 20,000 projectors are 100% of the possible theatrical field.
The non-theatrical film market has not reached 1% of its possibilities. It has perhaps 15,000 projectors. But one third of them is unused; another third used occasionally; the other third may be running to half their capacity. The average run is but a few hours per week. Add to this that film-rentals are ridiculously low. Naturally such a field is practically ignored by all but a very few theatrical producers. And yet a mere 20,000 schools — with projectors usable from 9 a. m. through the day and evening for school and community purposes, several projectors even running at the same time in different rooms — would equal or exceed the total theatrical run, if the schools could get the film. And "20,000 schools" are about one fortieth (Mo) of the non-theatrical field.
What will "100% of the non-theatrical field" mean ? There are in the United States (naming always round numbers far below the actual figures), 200,000 schools, 200,000 churches, 200,000 clubs, lodges and community centers, besides another 200,000 projector prospects in colleges, normal schools, universities, hospitals, prisons, welfare institutions, hotels, railroad stations, public parks and playgrounds, on trains, steamships, airships . . . not to mention American homes. Here are 800,000 potential projectors, or 40 times the number of theatres. Further, this vast field as a whole is already inclined to install projectors, they do not need to be "sold." Why, then, have the 800,000 bought only 15,000 projectors to date? For two reasons, one unimportant, the other all-important.
First, the cost of the projector. This is a minor matter. Even small schools and churches manage it. The pitiful part of it is that thousands of these hard-won projectors have had to go into cellars and closets to gather dust. The rest of the field knows this, and hence refrains from buying.
Second, the lack of films — and this is the crux of it all. The non-theatrical field has lived from the beginning on miserable stuff, the crusts and the crumbs. It is tired of the crude relics of early productions, tired of worn-out prints from negatives long since out of circulation, tired of the nondescript film efforts of well