After a not so great 2005 for movie ticket sales, we are now seeing a change for the positive that is sure to make the major studios like Paramount and Warner Bros. breath a collective sigh of relief. The fear that everyone would soon bypass the big screen and wait for the DVD to come out or download illegally off some file sharing service is proving not to be the case. According to our latest research, 38% of college students report going to see at least one movie in the past week, up sharply from 30% last year. College women appear to be the main driver, with average weekly attendance at 39%, up a remarkable 34% from just last year. We have no reason to believe the upward attendance trend will fade away into the summer sun anytime soon. There is a chock full of Gen Y centric films out there right now, I already posted about Nacho Libre last week, and that is only the tip of the iceberg. Ancillary activities associated with movies are also on the rise. College students are becoming more active in downloading movie trailers and visiting those high octane movie web sites with all of the bells and whistles. We've seen a number of studios do a nice job recently integrating their offerings within popular online destinations like paid-for branded pages within MySpace, and the like. So on this summer Friday, all I have to report to my Hollywood friends is nothing but good news, take the rest of the day off and hit the golf course or beach.
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