At the Movies I

Patrick Pacheco’s article on the film “Deep Cover” asserts that black audiences make up 12% of the population but account for 25% of movie ticket sales (“Fighting ‘The John Singleton Thing,’ ” April 12).

Unfortunately, there is no factual basis for this claim. The Motion Picture Assn. of America is the only organization that attempts to measure the composition of the total American film audience. All the MPAA surveys I have seen over the years indicate that black audiences account for a percentage of ticket sales almost precisely identical to their numbers in the American population--that is, about 11%-14%.

I have seen this claim that blacks are 25% of the film audience made several times previously, and I believe I know its origin. About five years ago, when the current black-film revival was getting under way, I recall seeing the assertion that blacks composed 25% of the film audience in several major urban markets. True, or close to it, in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, though not true at all of, say, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Boston.

Subsequently, the totally incorrect assertion was made in print that blacks are 25% of the total film audience, a claim that has been passed from one lazy film journalist to another until it has achieved its current status as one of those popular “facts” that happen not to be true.

As the film industry’s “newspaper of record,” you owe your readers a correction.

MICHAEL MAHERN

Los Angeles

Reader Mahern is correct. The MPAA reports that blacks account for 12.6% of the American movie audience as a whole .