You know how it goes: The theater advertises a movie’s start time as 7:00 p.m. So you make sure you’re in your seat, popcorn and drink in hand, AT 7.
And then you get assaulted by ads for cars, M&Ms, and upcoming Prime TV shows, followed by that notice to silence your phone and visually locate all the exits, and THEN the previews start.
By the time the actual movie starts, it’s, like, 7:20, 7:30. And your popcorn is half gone.
Well, a Connecticut state senator named Martin Looney calls this an “abuse of people’s time,” and he has introduced a bill that would make theaters list the actual start time of the movie you’re paying to see.
But a theater owner in Stamford pointed out that these are challenging times for movie houses, and they rely on those ads for revenue.
Making it easier for people to SKIP those ads will make companies less likely to pay for them.
This is a tough call. I’d be all for this bill, unless it meant that theaters started shutting down from the lost ad revenue. It sucks watching advertisements at a show we’ve PAID TO SEE, but if it means the preservation of the moviegoing experience, maybe we have to suck it up.
Plus, we watch ads on streaming services we pay for, right? As for trailers, they used to be just as important as the movies themselves back in the day. But I feel like they’ve lost a lot of their impact thanks to the Internet.
