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The Fall of the Cinema

19 September, 2024 marked a tragic day in St Andrews history. The 1930s cinema, the New Picture House, held its last screening. Well, its last screening as a “three screen cinema.” The New Picture House’s new fate: a luxury sports bar with flexible seating and virtual golf. 

 

Whilst, the new owners of the site, T-Squared Social, state that “two of the three cinema screens are being retained,” the charm and classic appeal of the cinema will inevitably be lost with the introduction of simulation sport screens. 

 

The closing of the New Picture House is unfortunately not a unique situation. In fact, there’s a wider and more societal issue at hand, in what I am calling ‘the fall of the cinema’. Across the country, cinema attendance is at a shocking low, dropping from 176 million in 2019 to 123 million in 2023. The New Picture House, specifically, was operating on only a ten per cent capacity each day. 

 

So why are cinemas being left so desolate? And what is the consequence of their decline? 

 

The reduction in cinema attendance can partially be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic. Film production was halted, and cinemas everywhere were closed. When discussing the state of cinemas in 2020, Forbes stated that “theatrical entertainment accounted for only 15% of the total global entertainment revenue, compared to 43% in 2019.” Yet, if it was simply the pandemic causing cinemas to struggle, would we not be seeing a return to normality by now?  

 




It’s safe to say that the fall of cinemas is largely down to the popularisation of streaming services. Sites such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ allow viewers to watch their favourite new releases from the comfort of their own home. If a new film is being released in cinemas in September, a streaming service will probably have snatched it up by October at the latest. As well as this, streaming services are producing their own films that don’t even appear on cinema screens to start with. 

 

The two major issues facing cinemas are directly correlated. According to the BBC, when the world went into lockdown, Netflix saw an increase of sixteen million customers. When cinemas were forced to close, streaming services provided salvation for a desperate audience. But now it’s that very salvation that’s preventing cinemas from getting back on their feet. The New Picture House itself stated that it “would need to close or adapt to survive.”

 

It could be argued that this switch, from cinema to streaming, is a good thing. Surely, it makes a wide variety of entertainment more accessible for the masses. A standard Netflix subscription costs £10.99 a month. This provides the viewer with a large array of films for the same price as a single cinema ticket. It does make sense why so many are choosing to abandon the cinema for cheaper enjoyment. 

 

I would like to suggest, however, that watching a film on your laptop at home does not come close to the immersive experience that is watching a film on the big screen. I believe the picture and sound quality and the general mood evoked by the cinemal make it worth the extra expense. It has also been reported that the simple act of attending the cinema benefits our emotional state, often decreasing levels of anxiety and depression. 

 

With the closing, or “refurbishment” of the New Picture House now underway, it seems difficult for me to recommend an upcoming trip to the cinema. However, I encourage you to reflect on the dying art form that is total immersion in film. And, maybe, when the cinema reopens into a sports bar/movie theatre combo, to ditch your Netflix original for one night and go to the cinema. 


Image from Wikimedia Commons

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