| Story by Gordon
Grearson From the letters to the Editor, we received this message from a projectionist who does not work for Regal Cinemas but for another, independent theater and gives us his opinion on how his theater is doing much better business and one of those reasons is because Regal forces customers to watch commercials and continues to raise their prices, driving would be Regal customers to his locally owned theater. We can only hope that this trend will continue and drive Regal out of the market, or at the least, make them think their actions through. However, word has it that Regal may be on the verge of bankruptcy. http://www.oregonherald.com/filed/regalcinemas.htm
Regal Cinemas owns just about every theater around us and our business has been steadily increasing over the past couple of years. The more commercials Regal shows or the higher the ticket prices and snack bar prices go, the more business we get. Our customers have mentioned constantly about how much it costs to attend a Regal theater AND still get bombarded with commercials. We don't show commercials, advertising slides, or movie trailers at the Skyline. The movie starts on time and you get a double feature movie for only $5 per person (kids age eleven and under are free). It's a pity that in many towns, Regal Cinemas has either bought out or forced some nice independent theaters out of business. I understand that in Los Angeles and other large cities that Regal is now removing the pre-show advertising slide projectors and replacing them with video projectors to run real commercials! It's getting to the point of why bother going to the theater when all you do is pay to watch a bunch of tv commercials. At least at home you can change channels or hit the 'mute' button! Heck, you might as well bring your couch with you when you settle down in "living room # 14" (formerly called auditorium # 14) in the multi-plex theater (or maybe I should call it a video parlor). There are a couple of good websites
to check out: "Captive Audience" at www.captiveaudience.org Sincerely, Ken Layton
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