The storm has subsided

 
Cinema reach Mach Basic 2008-1 shows stable figures for cinemas, albeit still at a historically low level. 
The fact that the medium of cinema was not doing well last year has been known since the presentation of the PubliGroupe balance sheet on March 19 at the latest: as is well known, the turnover of the cinema marketer Cinecom collapsed. The box-office figures for Mach Basic 2008-1 now confirm the decline in interest from an audience perspective - even if the current Wemf figures do not reflect the whole of 2007. But this much is clear from the reach survey: after the significant drop in attendance for Mach Basic 2007-2, weekly cinema reach is now at around its lowest level. In short: they are practically stable at a historically low level. One small consolation remains for the industry: at 0.7 percent, the renewed decline is the smallest since the peak in reach in 2003, when the Wemf reported 486,000 weekly moviegoers across Switzerland. Cinema currently only has a weekly reach of 381,000. According to Mach Basic 2008-1, the following cinema regions were the most stable: firstly the whole of western Switzerland, especially Lausanne, then the Zurich and Schaffhausen/St. Gallen regions. The figures in Basel are rather disappointing: the first multiplex cinema to date was opened there in the fall of 2006 and is now almost completely included in the Wemf figures. Nevertheless, the trend on the banks of the Rhine is pointing downwards. Incidentally, a slight upward trend can only be found in Lucerne with + 8.7 percent.
The all-clear has been given to some extent for young people. While Mach Basic 2007-2 still showed a particularly dramatic slump in reach among this target group, the figures are now largely stable and even rising slightly in German-speaking Switzerland. The only slight losses were recorded in French-speaking Switzerland.
Cinema magazines: Avant Première with a larger market shareIn contrast to cinema admissions, the reach of free cinema magazines is once again falling drastically. Compared to Mach Basic 2007-2, all titles remain in the confidence range, but in a comparison over twelve months, the loss of readership for Film demnächst and Avant Première is significant. Only Close-up lost only moderately. However, because the Geneva-based Quorum Group discontinued the French-speaking Swiss cinema magazine Live at the end of September 2007, the cinema titles now have almost 100,000 fewer monthly contacts than six months ago. However, this hardly reflects the current situation. Live has not simply disappeared: Avant Première, which is also published by the Quorum Group and increased its circulation by 20 percent, jumped into its gap. Avant Première, which currently has a reach of 12.2 percent in French-speaking Switzerland, is therefore already likely to have higher figures. Incidentally, all three free cinema magazines have been marketed by the Lausanne agency Mediapresse since last December, including Close-up, which was previously managed by Cinecom.
Pro Cinema sold 16 percent fewer tickets Pro Cinema, the Swiss Association for Cinema and Film Distribution, reports completely different figures as usual. For the 2007 calendar year, only three-quarters of which is covered by Mach Basic 2008-1, the association has recorded a total of 14.187 million tickets sold, 15.8 percent fewer than in the previous year. According to Pro Cinema, the people of Zurich seem to be particularly fond of cinema. 4.6 percent of the city's population went to the movies once in 2007. In Aarau and Baden, on the other hand, the figure was just 0.2 percent each.
Markus Knöpfli