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Senior Entertainment
 More Seniors Go to the Movies as Attendance Drops
Sharply for Others
Senior citizens, however, led trend in
preferring movies at home
May 16, 2006 Senior citizens 65 and older
were trendsetters for preferring to watch movies at home. In a 1995
survey, 73% of seniors said they preferred to watch movies at home,
while the survey found only 69% of all adults preferred home movies. Now,
seniors and all adults surveyed by Pew Research Center are up to a 75%
preference for home movies. Interestingly, however, more seniors are
going out monthly to the movies in 2006 (13%) than they did in 1995
(10%), while the trend is reversed for all ages just 26% in '06 versus
31% in '95.
 The start of the summer blockbuster movie season
has Hollywood hoping for the usual stampede to the theaters, but now
more than ever, the place that most Americans would rather watch movies
is under their own roof, according to this Pew report.
The survey finds that more than seven-in-ten adults
(71%) watch at least one movie a week, but the great bulk of this
viewing occurs at home rather than in a theater. Three-quarters of all
adults say they would prefer watching movies at home, up from 67% in
1994.
The Pew survey findings on the declining theater
audience support statistics from the Motion Picture Association of
America that show a drop in admissions since the mid 1990s. Peak
admissions occurred in 2002 at 1.6 billion and dropped in 2005 to 1.4
billion, the lowest admissions figure since 1997.
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Whos in the Theater-going Audience?
A majority of adults (56%) go to the movie theater
at least occasionally. Theater-goers are more likely to be young,
college educated, and more affluent. Men are more likely to go to the
theaters than are women. Blacks, whites, and Hispanics are about equally
likely to go out to a movie. Rural residents are less likely than their
counterparts in urban or suburban areas to go to the theater.
More than four-in-ten (44%) Americans say that
they never or hardly ever go to the theater. Fully 67% of older adults
(ages 65 and older) say this, as do more than half (57%) of those with
family incomes under $30,000.
About a quarter (26%) of Americans report going to
the movie theater at least monthly; another three-in-ten report going
less frequently; and 44% say they never or hardly ever go to a theater.
Theater-going is down since 1995 by five percentage
points among all adults, and down even more sharply among younger, more
educated, and more affluent adults. But up for older Americans.
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While the most popular way to watch movies at home
is on broadcast, cable or satellite television programming, fully half
of the public says that at least once a week they a watch a movie on a
DVD or by pay-per-view.
Viewing movies at home in this manner - which, like
theater-going, requires consumers to pay for each movie they see - is
roughly five times more prevalent than going out to the movies in a
theater, the Pew survey finds.
Senior citizens, however, are far less likely to
watch DVD or pay-per-view movies just 29% do it weekly. They strongly
prefer to get their movie from broadcast or cable tv sources that do not
cost them extra.
For most of adults, this heightened preference for
home movie viewing tracks a rapid expansion over the past decade in a
variety of home movie viewing services and options. Beyond the familiar
staple of movies on broadcast, cable, satellite or pay-per-view
television, there are now faster turnaround times for first-release
movie DVDs, as well as mail services (such as Netflix) and recording
devices (such as TiVo) that make home movie viewing more convenient.
Also, the burgeoning sales of large-screen,
high-resolution television sets have created a home-theater setting in a
growing number of American living rooms and dens.
None but the basics of cable or satellite service
appeal much to seniors, who are the most likely of all age groups to
have one of these services and the least likely to have any of the other
amenities.
Only about 14% of adults ages 65 and older have
three or more of these devices and services at home, compared with 25%
among those under age 30.
As more people say they prefer to watch movies at
home, fewer are going out to theaters. Since 1995, when Pew last asked
these questions, there has been a small overall decline in the
percentage of adults who report that they go to theaters at least
monthly. This decline, while modest among the full adult population, has
been more substantial among those segments of the public most coveted by
the theater industry - younger, better educated, and higher-income
consumers.
Are home viewing devices and services eating into
the theater-going audience? The Pew findings on this question are mixed.
Among people who rarely or never go to the theater, "the ease of waiting
for the DVD" is the most oft-cited reason in our survey for not going to
the theater more often. But our survey finds that people with more home
movie viewing devices and services are also the ones most likely to
watch a lot of movies - both in the theater as well as at home. Movie
buffs, in short, tend to watch a lot of movies, no matter what the
venue.
These findings come from a new survey by the Pew
Research Center, conducted by telephone with a nationally
representative, randomly selected sample of 2,250 adults from February 8
through March 7, 2006.
For more on the study -
click here.
See more results below.
More Home Movie-Viewing Options
A growing number of movie services and devices
have changed the ways that Americans see movies at home. About
eight-in-ten (81%) Americans have cable or satellite service in their
home and 30% subscribe to premium channels such as HBO.
More than a third (36%) of Americans report owning
a flat screen, plasma, or high-definition TV.
Nearly a fifth (17%) have a digital video recording
device such as TiVo in their home and 6% use a mail delivery service
such as Netflix for home movies.
Tallying up those who have each of these devices
and services3, 23% of all adults have three or more of these devices and
services and another three-in-ten have two such devices. Those most
likely to have such devices and services are under age 50 and more
affluent. Respondents with more of these movieviewing devices and
services are more likely to watch movies frequentlyboth at home and in
the theaterthan are those with fewer such devices.
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