The Great Debate: Home Screens vs. Big Screens

Are we ready to return to the big screens or have our couches become the new cinema halls?" That's the provocative question we're exploring this week on the Infuse YOU Podcast. This episode takes a slight detour from our empowering discussions and instead, we dive into National Cinema Day and the changing landscape of movie viewing. Using data from an insightful article by Don Simmons, CEO of Engine Insights, we dissect the booming growth of streaming subscriptions and the lingering reluctance to return to theaters. 

As your host, I also add a personal touch to this discussion, echoing the data with my family's experiences and preferences. We explore how different demographics are leaning towards movie viewing, the increasing comfort with streaming ecosystems, and the hesitation of returning to the theater. I share insights from my own impromptu survey on social media and reveal some interesting preferences across generations. Plus, we delve into the economic implications of these trends and how the presence of children at home influences these preferences. Whether you’re a film enthusiast or just curious about the post-pandemic world of movies, this episode is packed with fascinating insights.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome to season two of the Infusion podcast. My name is Teresa and I am your host. I'm excited to be back for another season. The goal of this podcast is to help women and young girls fill up their cups. Oftentimes, we are so focused on helping and supporting others that we forget to take care of ourselves too. My mission is to spread love and joy through movement, education and motivation. Happy Monday. I hope you guys are having an awesome day. That you've had an awesome day because it is Monday evening. I am behind this week on releasing a new episode, but it's okay.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Life happened and I had to make adjustments. This is just your reminder that you are not perfect and it's okay to have delays. So I had an awesome weekend. It kicked off Thursday night with the Beyonce concert here in Arizona. I had so much fun, so much so that I didn't get to bed until 2am and I don't know why. But next time I got to take the next day off. I did not take the next day off. I planned to work my full shift, since I was working from home. I thought I got this, so I powered through, got a vanilla cream cold brew from Starbucks with two espresso shots, but by 2.30pm. I was counting down the minutes until 4 o'clock so I could clock out After work. I literally did nothing. And on Saturday I literally did nothing but washed a few loads of clothes and I watched movies. Sunday was another busy day of back-to-back fitness rehearsals, but to throw a monkey wrench in the situation, I went out to remote start my car and seconds later the car cut off. So now there's another layer of things to worry about. So definitely was not going to be recording anything for Sunday release. I'm grateful that our car problems turned out to just be a battery.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Now on to today's episode. I appreciate everyone that has continued to support this podcast, and on this podcast we keep it 100, right. So shit happens. So here we are. Last week I shared that we would dive into the history of women's equality and present day status, but because I want to make sure that I give you the best information possible and have time to conduct additional research, we're going to switch gears this week and we're going to talk about another national day. You guys know I love my national days.

Speaker 1: 2:28

So yesterday, august 27th, was National Cinema Day, so I want to talk about it, the current trends and whether people are now going to the movie theaters, since it's post pandemic or if there's still a lot of people who prefer to stream new movies at home. So I took to Google, looked up some data, looked up some information and I'm going to be sharing today from an article in Ad Week by Don Simmons, who is a CEO of Engine Insights. So, according to this article, don is saying that streaming movies because so many of us have embraced the streaming video services since the pandemic. This has actually accelerated in the past 18 plus months and it's becoming increasingly clear that some movie habits will not return to pre-COVID. Now there's so many movie theaters that are back up and running all in one services. If you're here in Arizona, we have one called Fat Cats. It has a movie theater golfing, a bar, a grill, all of those types of things. They're all opening back up and consumers have just been accustomed to paying for watching those new movies at home and skipping the whole in theater experience.

Speaker 1: 3:41

However, some portion of the population little less than half, 47% of the US adults are saying that they would be willing to go to the movies in the next week. So almost half of us, so just about half of us are willing to go to the movies, right? So the combination of the explosive growth of streaming subscriptions, consumers increasing comfort with streaming ecosystems, has continued hesitance for people to return to the theaters. So what do the majority of consumers have to say? Of course, there are certain industry economic issues to work out to find balance between theaters and streaming. However, everybody has their own personal preference, regardless of the cost, regardless of the location. So Ingen has found that 36% of US adults report to have purchased a new movie release to stream at home, and those 36% will continue to do so in the near future. When we break that down by generational demographic, this rises to 54% for our millennials, but only 14% for our baby boomers. So the people that have children at home are twice as likely than those without children at home to purchase a new release, and that's a 54% versus 26% split. Also, a substantial number of consumers have made purchases of some movies as well, with 25% of those millennials having paid to watch Black Widow at home, while 24% of Gen Z and millennials paid for Mulan. Now, with HBO and Disney both announcing new movie releases, will run exclusively in theaters for 45 days before they are available for streaming. We ask consumers, we meaning Ingen's the person who wrote this article.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Ask consumers what they thought about the different viewing options. The majority of consumers, about 55%, preferred to wait until the movies became available via streaming, compared to 32% who are willing to go to the movie theater, and then 13% preferring to pay the 20 or 30 dollar markup to immediately view the movie at home. Gen Z and millennials are less willing to wait the 45 days, with 25% of Gen Z and 26% of millennials preferring to pay for and stream movies at home. However, baby boomers are notably not at all likely to pay for streaming premieres at home only 4%. So it seems like to me the baby boomers want to go to the movies that Gen Z or OK streaming. I mean, that's what it sounds like, but again, interestingly enough, the presence of children limits, excuse me, the presence of children limits the consumer's patience to wait for streaming. 45% of Americans with children at home will wait the 45 days to stream. This rises to 60% for those without children at home. Factors here likely include the desire to keep kids well entertained, but also a different expense calculation, with the cost of childcare to go to a movie is factored in, or, in my opinion, the cost of paying for multiple people to go to the movie.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Have you ever thought about starting your own podcast? Do you like to talk to people? Do you have something to share with the world? Well, if that is, you just like I was. I was so confused, didn't know where to start, what tools to use, what tools I needed, but I'm so excited to be partnering with Buzz Sprouts. They helped me kickstart my podcast. They have all of the resources that you need, both in written form and also YouTube tutorials, and if you sign up for their paid plan, you will receive a $20 credit if you use the link in my profile bio, and you will also be helping to support the Infusion podcast. So when we go to the movie as a whole family, there's five of us. So when we go to the movies, that's five movie tickets, five drinks, five snacks. Well, let me back that up it's actually four drinks, four snacks, because our daughter, who's disabled, doesn't take anything by mouth, but we still have to buy a movie ticket for her to come into the movies. So I would say, for a family with children, depending on which movie it is, we may choose to wait and stream that movie at home versus paying for all of us to go to the movie theater. If it's just me and my husband going to the movie theater, or me and two of the kids, or me and one of the kids, then maybe we may go to the movie theater versus waiting for the movie to come out on the streaming platforms.

Speaker 1: 8:26

So I did a little research on my own. I put a post on social media. I only got a couple people to respond. I also asked some of my family members about what their preference was streaming the movies or going to the movies. So out of the people that I asked, I had two Gen X and two Gen Z, and both of the Gen X and one of the Gen Z prefer to watch new movies at the theater versus streaming them at home. And then there was one Gen Z excuse me, one Gen X who preferred to stream the movies at home versus watching them in the theater. I fall into the Gen X category and for me, I just love the movie theater ambiance, the snacks, and now they have a bar available with alcohol drinks. You guys know I love my margaritas and I just love the whole movie theater feel, the recline seats.

Speaker 1: 9:28

However, in reality, it is much less expensive to stream a new movie at home, especially, like I said, when you have a family and there is more than a couple of you that are going to the movie theater, you can stay home. You pay the $25 to purchase the movie to stream. If there's five of you in your family, that's $5 a person. No movie theater costs $5 anymore for one ticket, unless you're a singer or they're running a special, and even now I believe that senior tickets are probably like $8.

Speaker 1: 10:01

In Arizona, though I'm sure this is available other places, but in Arizona we do have an alternative. When it's not hot outside and during our cooler months, we have access to a drive-in theater, and the drive-in theater costs are much lower than the walk-in theater. So we used to do that as a family drive into the movie in our vehicle park and watch the movie on the big screen. You didn't hear this from me, but you know most of us that go to the drive-in. We bring in food and snacks with us and that also saves money. Even though they have a snack bar and they don't really want you bringing anything in besides something to drink. Our family usually brings the whole kit and caboodle right. We're outside, we're in a drive-through, we're going to bring our snacks with us.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Now, no matter what you prefer, stick with what works for you. Don't go to the movies every time a new movie comes out because your friends are doing it, because if that's not in your budget or that's not your preference, you don't have to do that. Like with anything in life, it is your life. You make the decisions that work best for you and if you have a family, you have to take them into account as well. It's not always about you. Some people just love the theater and others just don't care. They just want to watch the movie.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Now sometimes, depending on the movie that's coming out, I may say, yeah, I can wait until it comes. You know, on the streaming service, I'll wait. But there are some movies, like, for example, the Fast and Furious franchise, I'm not waiting. We be there for those movies when they premiere, so the night before it actually hits the theater or the two nights before when they have those special premieres. That's what we do, because that's one of our favorite movie franchises in this house, besides my husband, because he could care less about the franchise, but me and the kids we there for Fast and Furious. So movies like that I can't wait until it comes out on streaming. But there are some other movies I'm like yeah, that looks good on the screen, but do I really want to pay to go watch that in the theater? Another one is Equalizer. It's coming out soon, equalizer 3 with Denzel. That's a movie we have to go to the theater to see. We can't wait for it to come on a streaming service. So again, no matter what your preference, stick with it. Movie theater, streaming services, both half and half.

Speaker 1: 12:17

I hope you enjoyed your National Cinema Day. We didn't partake in any special movie theater offers that were going on this past weekend, but we did stream two movies on Netflix that we've never seen before. So we did celebrate National Cinema Day in that way. I want you guys to tune in. Next week we're going to get into the women's equality discussion. I promise you it will be there for us.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Next Sunday we're going to talk about that and then the following Sunday I will be having a special broadcast episode. Is that the following Sunday? I got to look at my calendar because I'm off days now. No, I'm so sorry. That'll be two Sundays from now. So next Sunday, on the third, we will do the women's equality.

Speaker 1: 12:56

And then on the 17th I will have a special broadcast. It may not come out on the 17th because I will have to edit it, but I will be in Las Vegas at the games fit retreat. If you don't know what that is, it is a weekend long fitness retreat with instructors from all over the United States bringing different formats. We're going to party, we're going to network, we're going to have fun and I am going to bring you little snippets of the weekend for this, that podcast episode that weekend. So tune in. If you want more information, go to gamesfitcom, and I hope you guys have a blessed day. You have been listening to the infusion podcast. I hope that something was said today that will help you along your life journey. Until next time, continue to do you, be you, infuse you and be blessed.