2024-08-07
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"Can you keep your voice down?" "I bought the ticket! I can do whatever I want. If you have the guts, change your seat!"
On the evening of August 3, a theater in Chaoyang District, Beijing, was broadcasting the Paris Olympics women's table tennis singles final. Du Mou witnessed a quarrel between a passerby and a fan. The passerby was dissatisfied with the fans' loud cheers, and the fans were not to be outdone and used their ticket purchase rights to exempt themselves from liability.
The quarrel did not stop. In the second half of the game, Sun Yingsha lost points continuously, and another fan shouted "Sun Yingsha wins, Chen Meng goes home", which aroused the dissatisfaction of passers-by, and the two sides began to quarrel with each other. Even after the game ended, the front row was still in a continuous conflict. Although this was a final match between Chinese players, the entire theater was always filled with a tense atmosphere. In a two-and-a-half-hour live broadcast, Dumou witnessed three conflicts.
The problem of fan clubs in sports has been around since the 2016 Rio Olympics, but at that time, they were more concentrated in the Internet world, and offline star-chasing was more reflected in the difficulty in getting tickets for star players' games. As the craze became more and more turbulent, the star-chasing scene became more and more generalized, and it was not until the Olympics, a time of national attention, that the impact of fan clubs was concretely revealed to everyone.
This year, China Film Corporation obtained the rights to distribute and screen the Olympics in theaters. Hundreds of cinemas across the country that meet the conditions for live screenings can broadcast the Olympic events in real time.
This is different from previous attempts at "concert theaters," such as the Taylor Swift Time Tour, where fans mostly booked the theater, and dancing and singing along to the music was a given. But among the audience at the Olympics, there may be fans who booked the theater to cheer for their favorite athletes, and there may also be passers-by who call their friends to feel the charm of competitive sports in the theater. The different viewing needs of the two are gathered in the same confined space, and it is difficult not to have conflicts.
Interestingly, while domestic cinemas were bustling with people watching the Olympic Games, overseas cinemas that were also broadcasting the live events were deserted. The huge difference between the two places points to their different Olympic atmospheres and market environments.
But the fact that both domestic and foreign countries have chosen to bring the Olympics to the big screen suggests, in a sense, that cinemas around the world are facing the same survival challenge - cinemas are losing a large number of audiences, and they have to seek diversified business models.
"The big screen is still different." As soon as Du Mou sat down, he heard many audience members around him express such sentiments.
For sports events, the transition from the small screen to the big screen, the better-definition broadcast quality can provide delicate picture details, allowing the audience to intuitively feel the charm of competitive sports. This is also the main reason that attracts audiences to go to the cinema to watch the live broadcast of the Olympics.
For this reason, in order to ensure the quality of this live broadcast, during this distribution process, China Film has strict screening standards for cinemas that are qualified to broadcast the Olympics live. On the one hand, China Film will issue debugging documents, detailing the technical standards, and theaters that do not meet the standards will not be qualified to broadcast live. A theater manager told Dumo that their theater directly canceled the live broadcast event because the signal reception was unstable and did not pass the test; on the other hand, theaters with CINITY special effects halls can sign up directly from the brand. Special effects halls are different from ordinary halls and can bring better audio-visual experience to the audience.
Thanks to the high-quality live broadcast environment, the cinema's live broadcast of the Olympics provides the audience with a unique sense of atmosphere, an immersive feeling, and an immersive experience of the excitement of the competition.
The theater also spared no effort to add atmosphere to the live broadcast. In the theater where Du Mou is located, the staff will give everyone a small national flag before entering, and put a QR code on the table at the entrance. After the game, the audience can collect photos of that night in the group to keep as a souvenir.
On social networks, many cinemas have shown off their "services", some providing cakes and snacks, and some even setting up a ping-pong table in the cinema for audiences to play.
Although the ticket prices for the Olympic live broadcast in Beijing cinemas range from 50 to 80 yuan, which are higher than the ticket prices for ordinary movies, the audience feels that they have gotten great value for money both in terms of viewing experience and service experience.
In this context, "Watching the Olympics in the Cinema" attracted many passers-by. According to Du Mou's observation, the attendance rate reached more than 90%. One audience member told Du Mou that when she bought her ticket a day in advance, there were not many seats left, so she could only choose a not-so-good seat in the front row.
However, this is not the case for all live events. For this release, the reservation service for viewing was provided through the reservation screening platform of China Film Group Corporation. The theaters decided the number of people to start a group, ranging from 2 to 100 people. In order to ensure that more people can start a group, many theaters did not arrange the screening according to the event schedule provided by China Film Group Corporation, but focused more on popular events such as table tennis, diving, and badminton. But even so, there are still cases where groups cannot be started.
There are two main reasons for this phenomenon. First, the relevant publicity is not in place. Ordinary audiences are not aware of the live broadcast of the Olympic Games in theaters, and the ticket purchase interface for scheduled screenings is not obvious enough for ordinary audiences to complete the ticket purchase behavior simply and conveniently.
Secondly, the enthusiasm of ordinary audiences for the game is limited, and blindly going to the same venue as fans will ruin their own viewing experience. For movies that are clearly fan-oriented, such as concert movies, the audience singing along and "cheer" are relatively unified, but the audience's habits in sports games are not the same, not to mention the behavior of booing opponents, which can easily make passers-by feel resistant.
In order to prevent unexpected situations, Du Mou observed that night that the cinema would arrange 2-3 staff members to be on standby at all times to observe the situation of the audience and ensure the stability of the live broadcast signal.
It requires a certain amount of labor costs, and also has to deal with the impact of irregular film scheduling, but the theater did not get the expected rich profits. According to the average ticket price of 55 yuan in the venue where Du Mou is located, the theater has 204 seats. If it is full, it can make 11,220 yuan. However, there is only one live broadcast event a day, and after excluding the profit sharing, the theater can finally get not much.
According to the data from Lighthouse Professional Edition, the highest box office of the current Olympic live broadcasts was 2.136 million yuan for the opening ceremony, while the box office of other events was only tens of thousands yuan, and the lowest was only 461 yuan for the men's and women's table tennis semi-finals on August 2. With such low data, it is difficult for theaters to support their investment in the event.
Even if the cinema presents a lively scene, it serves more limited audiences and specific competitions, which is just a drop in the bucket for the cinemas that are currently in the midst of a survival crisis.
On the opening day of the Olympics, Chinese student Zhang missed the opportunity to watch the opening ceremony in the cinema in Virginia, which has a 6-hour time difference with France because it was a workday.
In June this year, AMC Theaters announced a partnership with NBC to broadcast the 2024 Paris Olympics in approximately 160 theaters across the United States from July 27 to August 11. The entire live broadcast event will start at different times from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is expected to be broadcast for 4 hours a day. Audiences can purchase tickets through the AMC official website or offline.
Zhang, who is a monthly card user of AMC, discovered the Olympic live broadcast on the official website of AMC. Before that, he had no other channels to learn about this. "If you are not very short of movies and look for movies in the list of upcoming releases on the official website, it is difficult to notice the Olympic live broadcast."
According to Zhang, AMC monthly card users can watch three movies for free every week. Curious about the live broadcast of sports events in the theater, Zhang used the free opportunity to watch the swimming competition on the first day of the competition. "I was particularly impressed. NBC invited Phelps to the live broadcast studio."
The presentation of the fierce competition on the big screen left a deep impression on Zhang. However, when asked if he would go to the cinema to watch the competition again, Zhang gave a negative answer. Although the four-hour live broadcast of the Olympics at AMC Cinemas in North America only cost $12, which is lower than the $15 for a two-hour ordinary movie, Zhang felt that the experience was not cost-effective.
First, the live broadcast in North American theaters was not clear enough, and the screen was not optimized. The signal was only amplified and projected. During the screening, the lights in the theater were always on, which affected the viewing effect of the game. Secondly, there were too many advertisements during NBC's live broadcast, and the content ratio was almost 1:1 with the event. At the same time, the entire live broadcast did not distinguish between the events. When the swimming competition was over, it would immediately jump to the next competition site without a clear and definite program list. Student Zhang told Du Mou that he did not stick to the end of the live broadcast and left after watching for only two hours.
In addition to the bad viewing experience, Zhang did not feel the lively atmosphere of watching the game like in China. The day he watched the movie was a holiday. The cinema was located in a shopping mall and had a certain flow of customers, but there were only a dozen people in the theater that could accommodate 100 people.
Without the crowds cheering and the fan club culture, the Olympic atmosphere in North America is not as lively as in China. Without the unique atmosphere of watching movies, relying only on low ticket prices to attract customers is not very attractive to the current audience. During the communication with Du Mou, Zhang opened the AMC software to check the live broadcast of the Olympic Games the next day and found that no one had booked tickets.
This obviously went against the initial expectations of AMC Cinemas and even many industry insiders. The live broadcast of the Olympics in cinemas did not create the grand scene of "Taylor Swift's Time Tour", but was a slump.
Jason Squire, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, told Yahoo Entertainment, "Showing the Olympics on the big screen was a test to see how many audiences theaters would attract without big stars or big-budget movies." Now it seems that this test has ended in failure.
This is a forced "self-rescue" action by AMC. Summer used to be the most profitable time of the year for the entire film industry, but the sluggishness of Hollywood has put cinemas in a difficult situation. AMC recently released its second-quarter financial report, with quarterly revenue of $1.03 billion, down 23.5% from $1.35 billion in the same period last year, and a net loss of $32.8 million.
Cinemas are in a critical period of life and death, and the emergence of the Olympics is like a "life-saving straw". However, the new cultural consumption form of "cinema + events" is still in its early stages. If it wants to save cinemas from danger, it can only be regarded as a chronic medicine, not a specific medicine.
In fact, it is not new for cinemas to broadcast sports events live. In the early years, cinema market operation was immature and copyright awareness was weak, so many cinemas would directly screen the signal. Chen Diandian, founding partner of ECO Krypton and sports industry expert, recalled that he watched the World Cup and other games on the screen in 2003.
Later, with the marketization of cinema operations and the strengthening of copyright awareness, live broadcasts of sports events in cinemas gradually entered a formalized path. During the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, some cinemas went to negotiate live broadcasts of the events, but unfortunately it did not take shape in the end.
In Chen Diandian's opinion, the revenue sharing issue has long been an important factor restricting the promotion of "cinema + event" in the market. "Is the money shared in proportion to the revenue? Or does the cinema pay a fixed copyright fee and then share it on this basis? All parties need to consider whether this is a worthwhile thing to do."
Due to the complex revenue sharing situation, the live broadcast of the cinema events has been delayed. However, this year's live broadcast of the Olympic Games can be quickly promoted, thanks to the direct cooperation between CCTV and China Film, which can easily bridge the possible conflicts of interest.
Although the innovative business model of integrating sports events with the big screen has attracted many parties, from a market perspective, the current live broadcast of events in theaters does not actually bring much profit, but serves more of a promotional purpose.
Chen Diandian analyzed that due to the restrictions of the event schedule, the live broadcast of the Olympics cannot accumulate box office revenue through scheduling like other movies. In most cases, it just allows the audience to have a better viewing experience. "Everyone can experience the Olympics in a new scene, and sports fans can have a place to gather together to watch the games. I think the social significance of this is much greater than its actual market benefits."
Although Chen Diandian has always maintained an optimistic and positive attitude, he also admitted that the current business model does not see any revenue growth points, and it is difficult to promote the development of live broadcasts of cinema events in the future.
According to the user characteristics analyzed by Lighthouse Professional Edition, the audience of the Olympic live broadcast is mainly concentrated in first- and second-tier cities. Due to the high ticket prices and strong technical requirements, the live broadcast of the event cannot be promoted to the sinking market. Even if there are more live broadcasts of the event in the future, it will not be able to truly boost the market and provide relief to theaters.
More importantly, an inevitable objective situation also needs to be taken into account. The Olympics, relying on its universal appeal, can penetrate circles and form appeal, but the radiation range of major events such as the World Cup and the European Cup cannot achieve the same effect as the Olympics. Considering that these major events are held every four years, although other events can provide content support for theaters on a continuous basis, they are not well known to the public. Most competitions are only for the circle, and the long-term gap is destined to prevent this form from becoming the main business of theaters.
However, in Chen Diandian's opinion, "cinema + event" is still a new business model worth exploring. The new business model can provide a new way out. Cinemas can start from the perspective of brands and attract sponsorship fees and naming fees through offline activities. These activities attract audiences to re-enter the theater and can also drive other businesses of the theater.
Similarly, for the sports industry, watching games in theaters also has certain industry significance. Chen Diandian said that due to the influence of short videos, the audience's attention is deprived and it is difficult to concentrate on sports events for more than an hour, which greatly affects the promotion and penetration of sports spirit to the public. "For example, in football, it is difficult for people to watch a game in its entirety now. They may either watch it while browsing their phones or watch the highlights directly. In this case, many viewers will not be able to appreciate the charm of the sport itself, and they will not grow into loyal users."
The loss of sports fans has caused significant changes in the entire sports industry. Copyright fees have stagnated, and events cannot find suitable distribution platforms. If this continues, it will be a dangerous signal for the industry.
By moving sports events into theaters, the ritual nature of the theater itself can give the audience a stronger sense of identity and allow them to experience the charm of sports, which makes it easier to convert ordinary audiences into sports fans.
In general, cinemas and sports events are each facing an existential crisis that will affect their future development. Although the current commercial combination faces many obstacles and is blocked by many objective reasons, from a long-term development perspective, it is a high-quality solution that can ensure future sustainable development for both cinemas and sports events.
Although this innovative attempt using the Olympics exposed many problems, it provided valuable practical experience for the adjustment of the business model in the future. I hope that the remaining problems can be solved and cinemas will have more diverse possibilities.
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