At the Movies: Battling Box-Office Blues in an Age of Streaming

From subscription services with generous discounts on concessions to comfier theaters, the film industry is moving aggressively to get more people off their sofas and to the box office, says Drew Borst of Goldman Sachs Research, so far with mixed results. Some efforts (think: reclining seats) are likely to prove more successful than others (think: forays into alternative content like eSports), he says. But one constant is likely to be a heavier reliance on big-budget blockbusters to draw audiences even as TV ups its game. "In television, the hits keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller as the supply has ballooned. It's become a crowded marketplace, and it's difficult for even a very well-produced, high-quality series to stand out," Borst says. "In movies, it's just the opposite. The hits are getting bigger and bigger...in the United States, but also globally."

This podcast was recorded on May 16, 2018.

All price references and market forecasts correspond to the date of this recording.

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