SPENDING ON CINEMAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 8

SPENDING ON CINEMAS.

Xo less a sum than £43,000,000 was spent by people in Great Britain for admission to cinemas last year. That sum included £7,000,000 in tax. As the average price per admission was about 9d, the money spent represented about 0ti0.000,000 admissions per year, or 18,500,000 per week.' If the admission*? in the whole of Ireland were added the total for the British Isles averaged about 20.000,000 per week. These remarkable figures were given by Mr. Simon Rowson, a director of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. addressing the Royal Empire Society recently on British influence through the film. llr. Rowson said critics of the modern commercial cinema v?ere apt to ignore the significance of such figures. A picture was made, sold and exhibited so as to appeal to the widest possible aggregate of audiences throughout 'the country. A moderately successful picture must count on an aggregate audience of at least 7.000,000 or 8,000,000 before it could produce a profit to the producer in the British Isle.?. The 'Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 had been successful beyond the wildest expectations of its promoters. Some of its more important results wore that close on 500 British feature films had been registered at a production cost of probably between £0,000,000 and £7,000.000. Studios' and equipment had cost not less than £2,500.000. Instead of the statutory quota of 7i per cent. British exhibitors had actually screened 17.SH per qent of British films. London was again becoming the film market of the world. Reports of every new picture screened in London were communicated to expectant buyers wherever the English language was spoken. An ever-growing market existed-for British films in such places as Scandinavia, Czecho-Slovakia", Spain, South America, Holland, Poland, China and Japan.