Movie theaters cut print show times as Web gains

Movie Exhibition Companies are starting to trend their advertising online rather than using Newspapers to show their show times. This is a smart move for many reasons. However, the question each theater company needs to determine is what demographic of people does each theater attract?

For example, if a large percentage of your business are senior citizens. It might not be the best decision to pull all of your print advertising. Many senior citizens either do not use the internet, may not be familiar with websites and search methods, and have used newspapers to find out show times of movies for a long period of time.

On the other hand, if your theater or theaters attracts a younger demographic that you feel are familiar with the internet and will not hinder the daily operations of your business; It is well worth cutting costs to your print advertising for multiple reasons. This will increase unique visitors/traffic to your website, allocate money to advertising that is measurable to ensure ROI goals are achieved. This is an important point because print advertising cannot measure how many people look at your movie listings or advertisements. However, online advertising is measurable.

This is a start of Movie Exhibition Companies using online advertising. There are a few Theater Companies using social networking sites like "Twitter" and "Facebook" to display show times, movie reviews, contests, and other relevant information pertaining to their company. I fully anticipate Movie Exhibition Companies using CPM, CPA, and other online advertising methods as a way to increase concession and gift certificate sales, drive traffic to their theaters and other ways that can be beneficial to the company and to its guests.

Read more about how movie theaters cut print on Web Gains on Variety.