Commentary : SIGHTING A SHIFT IN THE CENTERS OF ATTRACTION : Videocassette Recorders: the Reality That Won’t Go Away

During a recent panel discussion on the ills of movie exhibition, I heard the heads of distribution of two major studios compare videocassette recorders to Cuisinarts.

It’s hard to see a parallel there, other than that it’s not good to stick your finger in either one. But the point intended, as a palliative to the audience of theater operators, was that the VCR is a fad appliance--this year’s Christmas gift, next year’s dust collector.

Want to bet?

I don’t know how Cuisinarts have been selling lately. It’s true that the one in my house has been inactive since the Carter Administration. But I’m on my third VCR (the first, bought in 1978, had three levers and two functions) and I’ve already got about 100 hours on the one I bought in December (it lights up like the dash of a 747 and does things I’m afraid to try).

Most of the people I know, in and out of the film industry, have VCRs and use them. A lot. Mostly, they use them to watch movies that they have either rented, taped off their pay-TV services, or--on rarer and rarer occasions--bought.

The question you’re asked is not “Do you have a VCR?” but “Are you Beta or VHS?”

The VCR is not only not a fad, it has already changed America’s viewing habits and, according to a three-year study by Chicago-based Market Facts Inc., it has begun what may be an irreversible downward trend in theater attendance.

The study attributes last year’s box-office drop directly to the increase of VCR use by kids between the ages of 10 and 19. They watched three times more movies on videotape in 1985 than they did in 1984, and saw 20% fewer movies in theaters.

“It appears that cost-conscious kids who are forgoing multiple viewing of the same theater movie are hurting the theaters,” said Market Facts’ Mike Freehill, in summarizing key findings of the study. “Instead, they are now waiting for their favorite movies to come out on videotapes and then renting them . . . . “

It’s the VCR date, America’s new low-cost courtship theme: a six-pack of Coke, a tape or two and thou.

Freehill says the study, which involved interviews with 25,000 people during each of the last three Septembers, projected that movie attendance will decline even further among today’s teen-agers as they enter their 20s. The next age bracket up, ages 20 to 29, discovered the convenience of VCR viewing earlier (and could afford to buy them), and their movie attendance has dropped steadily over the last two years.

When Market Facts started its study in 1983, VCRs were in only 9% of American households. Today, they are in nearly 30%. Far from collecting dust, they’re humming right along.

VCR owners rented and watched six videocassette movies for every one they saw in a theater last year, and the study estimates that 40% of all movies viewed in America this year will be viewed on VCRs.

“Our material indicates that the VCR is here to stay; it is not a fad,” Freehill says. “Unless the (film) industry comes up with a series of blockbusters, or devises more effective marketing strategies, the decline in movie attendance will continue.”

Freehill says the Market Facts study, which also monitored trends in TV viewing and home computer usage, was commissioned by a large entertainment company that he will not name. The company allowed Market Facts to syndicate the results to studios, TV networks, pay-cable services and others whose futures hinge largely on shifting American viewing habits.

The syndication fee: $40,000.

“We have sold it to some studios, but not all,” Freehill says. “There has obviously been a lot of interest.”

Whether the film industry can reverse the trend away from theater attendance depends on its ability to improve the quality of movies and its willingness to target movies for older, previously neglected audiences, Freehill says.

If the studios--driven in recent years by their obsession for the teen-age blockbuster--will notice, the current upsurge in box office is owing largely to such adult-theme films as “Out of Africa,” “The Color Purple” and “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.”

The message seems clear. Movie lovers, even faddists with video Cuisinarts stacked on top of their TV sets, will go out to movies if the experience is appealing enough. Otherwise, we’ll just keep dropping by the tape store on the way home and taking our picks.

There are plenty of good movies there.