Scottish broadcaster STV has sold cinema advertising business Pearl & Dean to Thomas Anderson, the Irish businessman who owns the Empire cinema chain, for £1. The deal comes almost four year's after it was originally put up for sale.
According to figures released by the UK Film Council (UKFC) yesterday, cinema admissions rose to 173.5 million last year, and for the first time, combined box office takings in the UK and Ireland exceeded £1 billion. Harry Potter, Slumdog Millionaire and Avatar all helped make 2009 the best year for cinemas since 2002.
For the first time, annual ticket sales at British cinemas will break through the £1 billion mark, thanks to a strong line-up of blockbuster releases, including new 3D film Avatar. One factor is rising ticket prices, but the main reason is higher attendance.
Tim Richards, chief executive of Vue, said:
It's very exciting and confirms the strength of the business. Next year is looking like it will be at least as strong as this.
Cineworld has reported that its box office sales rose by nearly 20% year-on-year in the 17 weeks to April 23, and that it expects revenues to continue to do well this year overall thanks to a healthy line-up of blockbusters expected to thrive this summer (e.g. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation).
It looks as if cinema is putting in a counter-cyclical performance in these recessionary times as many people see a night out at the movies as a relatively inexpensive luxury. The Film Distributors' Association reports that UK cinema admissions reached 41.4 million in the first quarter of 2009, up from 38.5 million during the same period last year.
According to annual statistics published by the UK Film Council yesterday, British cinema box offices in 2008 were at their healthiest since records began 20 years ago, thanks to hit films Mamma Mia!, Quantam of Solace and The Dark Knight.
In 2007, box office takings were up 5% at £949.5 million, with the Abba musical the most successful film of the year.
A strong line up of films, which included Mamma Mia, The Dark Knight and Wall-E, have helped Cineworld report better than expected third-quarter sales. Sales at Cineworld, the UK's second-biggest cinema chain with a market share of 23.3%, were up 2.2% in the 43 weeks to October; box office revenues rose 3.9%, with retail sales up 0.1%.
Steve Weiner, chief executive, said the group should also have a healthy final quarter, thanks to new releases such as James Bond: Quantam of Solace and High School Musical 3.
A clutch of successful UK films this year has seen the industry bounce back with a vengeance. Titles like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hot Fuzz, and Atonement have been instrumental in increasing the market share of British films at the UK box office. In total, British films have accounted for 27% of UK box office takings so far in 2007, as against 19% for the whole of 2006.
The rainy summer probably helped; around 117 million cinema tickets have been bought in the UK this year, representing an increase of 12% on the same period in 2006.
The Independent reports today that this summer's bad weather and the presence of many blockbuster sequels have conspired to make the summer of 2007 the best-attended cinema season since the late 1960s.
The Film Distributors' Association has released figures reporting that 50.8 million visits to UK cinemas took place in the months of June, July and August this year. The last time the figure was near this was in 1969, when there were 50.4 million visits over the equivalent period, and 215 million over the year as a whole.
