Streaming services are taking viewers away from going to the movie theaters in recent years.
Convenience
Of the reasons why streaming services are beating movie theaters, convenience is one of the biggest reasons. Turning on a television and clicking on a streaming service is easier than having to drive to a theater buy a ticket, go through concessions, and then find your screen and seat.
Another convenient feature that streaming services offer is that you can start and stop watching whenever you want. If you can’t finish an episode or a movie in a full sitting you can stop halfway through and pickup where you left off.
Cost
Another reason for people picking streaming services over movie theaters is the cost. While streaming services have been raising their costs and cracking down on password sharing they are still cost competitive with going to the theater.
To get streaming services it costs between $13.99 to $17.99 to get one of the five most popular streaming services without ads. This gets subscribers wide selection of both movies and television shows for an entire month.
This is compared to an AMC movie ticket that costs $11.19 to see a movie at 25% off and $13.99 at full price. It boils down to whether it is worth it to spend almost the same amount of money on 1 movie or a months worth of content from one streaming service.
Selection
The last big thing is most modern movies that are show in theaters will end up on one of the popular streaming services. A big problem with theaters is they mainly play movies that are being shown in theaters. Occasionally theaters will have screenings of older movies but these aren’t often.
Streaming services have more variety of what people want to watch. For example Max, formerly known as HBO Max, not only has most of HBO’s collection of shows and Warner Bro’s movies but they also have a wide variety of A24 movies, Turner Classic Movies and some movies apart of the Criterion Collection. They also have access to Food Network shows, HGTV shows, and Adult Swim shows. This shows that they will have something for everyone.
Experience
The biggest reason people will go to the theater is for the experience. Watching a movie on a massive screen with great sound is a more captivating experience than watching something at home because most people don’t have a home theater system that can rival what movie theaters have.
The movie theater experience outclasses watching a movie on a phone or a TV. According to Statista phones are used by 69% of people to use streaming services and 62% of people used their TV. These were the only two devices that topped 50% of users.
Money Talks
A big reason why movie theaters are losing viewers to streaming services is because streaming has a lot of money tied to it. According to Forbes streaming revenue is going to get close to $44 billion whereas according to The Numbers the yearly box office total maxed out below $12 billion. Streaming already makes nearly 4 times what movie theaters do and streaming will continue to become more valuable.
Movies Matter 