Streaming services, cinemas, and the rise of the home theatre

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto© from Pexels

As movie theatres are busy transforming their business strategies to adapt to new operating conditions, innovations in home theatre tech are giving audiences more reasons to upgrade their home entertainment systems. In terms of quality and experience, the future of movie experiences may even belong to OLED.

Consumers are weighing their options

While watching a movie on the big screen is a treat, it can get quite pricey. Given that consumers now have the option to sign up for a streaming service subscription for a whole month, it’s starting to make sense for them to invest more in their home cinemas. For the price of a movie ticket, it’s now possible to access an entire catalogue of high-definition movies at your fingertips.

On the other hand, the adoption of streaming doesn’t necessarily mean the end of movie theatres. People who frequent cinemas nine or more times a year stream on average five more hours per week than those who don’t go to cinemas as often, which shows that it’s not always one or the other for loyal audiences. International trends and predictions point to both premium video on demand and cinema distribution models both existing side by side as we emerge from the pandemic.

Disrupting distribution models

Since Netflix has disrupted the TV entertainment model, some South African movie theatres have decided to join them by allowing audiences to watch a limited, or unlimited, number of movies at the cinema for a monthly subscription fee. Internationally, this trend has also emerged, with theatre distributors using customer data to improve offerings and build loyalty programmes.

Movie industry giants also haven’t been idle during this big shift in cinema. Warner Bros announced last year that their entire line-up of movies for 2021 will be released simultaneously in cinemas and on HBO Max in the US – an unprecedented distribution strategy that is largely due to theatres being quieter because of Covid-19. It’s not clear when audiences will feel comfortable enough to return to cinemas, but with media distribution companies going straight to streaming, the incentives are increasing for consumers to add to their home theatres.

This push to distribute to streaming services has no doubt been enabled and accelerated by technological advances in home entertainment over the last few years. Often, people are surprised to learn that some home televisions may surpass the visual quality of cinema.

In 2017, only 17% of movie theatres actually offered screenings in 4K, and even fewer provided the improved brightness and contrast ratios of HDR – which is considered to be even more impactful than having high resolution. With the advent of OLED’s infinite contrast, and the addition of Dolby Atmos surround sound, home theatres offer an incredibly immersive viewing experience – all within walking distance of your fridge.

Home entertainment in 2021

Covid-19 has accelerated the demand for home-streaming subscriptions, and this is unlikely to reverse once things return to ‘normal’. As continued improvements in technology make cinema-class entertainment accessible to everyone and the quality and variety of shows and movies available to stream increase, it’s only going to get more difficult to unglue ourselves from the sofa.

So, stock up on that popcorn, because cinema isn’t dead – it’s just moving to the living room.