Hollywood Demographics

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 Who Goes to the Movies?

 

Source:  MPAA U.S./Canada Movie Attendance Study for 2010, March 2011.

 

All of these figures apply to Americans and Canadians seeing movies in theaters in 2010, the last year for which statistics are available. The MPAA will publish a new study of movie attendance in March 2012.

 

 

Moviegoers by Age Group, 2010

 

AGE	PERCENTAGE OF MOVIEGOERS	PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION
2-11	15%	14%
12-17	11%	8%
18-24	12%	10%
25-39	23%	21%
40-49	15%	15%
50-59	12%	14%
60+	12%	18%

 

 

Most Frequent Moviegoers by Age Group, 2010

 

AGE	PERCENTAGE OF MOVIEGOERS	PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION
2-11	9%	14%
12-17	18%	8%
18-24	21%	10%
25-39	22%	21%
40-49	10%	15%
50-59	8%	14%
60+	12%	18%

 

 

The movie audience in the U.S. and Canada is getting slightly older, with a few more older people age 60 and up going to movies (see “Moviegoers by Age Group”). Meanwhile, teenagers are going to less movies, and children age 2-11 are going to more movies, which bodes well for attendance at clean family movies.

 

Even so, the age groups that also include parents and their children, 2-39, make up 70% of all moviegoers, but only 53% of the U.S./Canadian population, according to the MPAA. Also, for the first time MOVIEGUIDE® can recall, moviegoers age 18-39 make up the bulk of frequent moviegoers, 43% percent, compared to only 39% for moviegoers aged 12-24 according to the chart titled “Most Frequent Moviegoers by Age Group.”

 

Also for the first time, youths age 12-17 make up less than half of that 43%. Hollywood is starting to lose the interest of the young teenage audience.

 

Finally, the MPAA estimates there are about 35 million frequent moviegoers in the United States and Canada, with frequent female moviegoers purchasing fewer tickets in 2010 and frequent male moviegoers purchasing more tickets.

 

Here, it is very interesting to note that, instead of peaking between the ages of 18-24, as was typical, frequent moviegoing peaked at ages 25-39 in 2010, when a significant 7.9 million frequent moviegoers were aged 25-39 but only 7.5 million frequent moviegoers were aged 18-24.

 

Admissions by Rate of Moviegoing, 2010

 

FREQUENCY	PAID ADMISSIONS
Frequent (12+ a yr.)	51%
Occasional (2-11 a yr.)	47%
Infrequent (1 or less)	2%

 

 

Those who habitually see movies in the U.S. and Canada accounted for 51% of total box office admissions in 2010. This is a significant decline of nearly 38.6% compared to 2006, when 83% of total ticket sales were frequent moviegoers. Meanwhile, although occasional moviegoers account for a higher and higher proportion of the moviegoing audience, that group dropped by 1% in 2010.

 

It’s way too early to see this last number as a trend. Clearly, however, skyrocketing ticket prices have had a bad effect on moviegoing in recent years.

 

Frequency of Moviegoing, 2010

 

FREQUENCY	PERCENT OF POPULATION
Frequent (12+ a yr.)	10%
Occasional (2-11 a yr.)	47%
Infrequent (1 a yr. or so)	11%
Never	32%

 

 

About 32% percent of Americans and Canadians never went to see a movie in theaters in 2010, compared to 26% in 2006. Of those who do see movies, only 10% go 12 or more times each year, 47% see up to 11 movies, and 11% people go infrequently, about one movie each year.

 

Tickets Sold Among the Sexes, 2010

 

SEX	TICKETS SOLD
Males	50%
Females	50%

 

 

According to the MPAA, females purchased much fewer movie tickets in 2010 in the U.S. and Canada compared to 2009, going from 55% of movie tickets sold to 50% of tickets sold. Males purchased more tickets in 2010 compared to 2009, from 45% of the tickets sold to about 50%.

 

Tickets Sold by Ethnicity, 2010

 

SEX	TICKETS SOLD	PERCENT OF POPULATION
White	56%	66%
Hispanic	26%	16%
Black	11%	12%
Other	7%	6%

 

 

Hispanics bought a higher percentage of tickets in 2010 (26%) compared to their relative population size at the time (up from 21% in 2009). They have the highest moviegoing per capita, seeing about seven movies per year compared to about four movies per year for whites, blacks and other races.

 

Ticket sales among whites in the U.S. and Canada continued to drop, from 909 million in 2007 to 845 million in 2009 and about 750 million in 2010, according to the MPAA.

 

Meanwhile, internationally, box office for all movies outside the U.S. and Canada increased overall 13% in 2010. Also, a significant increase in box office occurred among moviegoers in the Asia Pacific region overseas, going from $7.2 billion to $8.7 billion, a 21% increase.

 

For the first time, box office in Europe, the Middle East and Africa accounted for less than half (49%) of the total international box office.

 

** Media Consumption and Trends

 

Sources:  “How Teens Use Media” released by The Nielsen Company June 2009, The Nielsen Company on 11/24/08 and 10/26/09, HealthDay News and Kaiser Family Foundation on 01/20/10, Sesame Workshop March 2011, Common Sense Media Fall 2011, Broadcasting & Cable on 05/25/10, the U.S. Census Bureau, and Movieguide®.

 

Note:  The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has not published a March report on media consumption since 2008. Therefore, we are using more recent sources.

 

MOVIEGUIDE®’s research indicates that, by the time a child is 17, he or she will have spent 51,800 to 60,200 hours using various media.

 

According to the United States Census Bureau and the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average person spends about 3,543 hours or more each year using various media. That works out to about 60,231 hours by the time the average person reaches 17. Statistics from the Kaiser Family Foundation, Sesame Workshop, the Nielsen Company, and Common Sense Media also reveal that, between the ages of 0-6 and 8-18, the average child will have consumed at least 51,820 hours of media.

 

Hours of Media Consumption, US Census Bureau

Per Person Per Year

 

KIND OF MEDIA	HOURS
Filmed Entertainment
Cable & Satellite TV	952
Broadcast TV	644
Computer and Internet	368
Home Video	59
Box Office	12
In-Flight and Mobile	36
Subtotal	2,071
Other Entertainment
Radio	729
Recorded Music	200
Newspapers	150
Magazines	135
Books	116
Video Games	142
Subtotal	1,472
TOTAL	3,543

 

 

Based on the totals in this table, the average American teenager from age 13 through 18 consumes at least 21,258 hours of television, movies, videos, DVD, radio, recorded music, video games, books, magazines, and newspapers, etc.

 

Also, from age 6 through 12, the average American child will have consumed about 24,801 hours of media.

 

Taken together, that totals 46,059 hours from age 6 through age 18.

 

According, however, to a recent study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation January of last year, children age 8 to 18 are spending more than 75 hours per week, or 3,913 hours per year with the media, including watching TV, surfing the Internet, listening to music, playing video games, going to movies, and reading.

 

This lines up fairly well with a report by Nielsen released previously, in June 2009, “How Teens Use Media,” which, when combined with statistics on reading and listening to radio or recorded music, estimates approximately 4,065 hours a year of total media consumption by teenagers.

 

However, the recent statistic from Kaiser about children means that the average American child age 6 through 18 is consuming about 50,869 hours of media.

 

Using the table above, however, by the time the average child reaches 17, he will have consumed up to 60,000 hours of media.

 

That’s nearly six times more hours than the average child will have spent in school (11,000 hours), 30 times more hours than he will spend with his parents (2,000 hours), and about 75 times more hours he will spend in church (800 hours), if he attends once a week every week!!!

 

Finally, according to a new study released last May by the Television Bureau of Advertising, adults are actually spending 1,929 hours annually watching Cable, Satellite and Broadcast TV as opposed to the 1,704 hours in the above chart.

 

** Consumer Entertainment Spending Down 7% in 2010

 

Sources:  U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011, and The New York Times, 06/14/11.

 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer spending decreased another 7% in 2010 after decreasing 5% in 2009. The average consumer spent $2,504 on entertainment or $303.25 billion in 2010 the Bureau says. This compares to $2,693 per consumer in 2009.

 

According to the 12th Annual Edition of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, however, American consumers spent $443 billion on entertainment in 2010. That’s about $1,429 per capita, or $5,716 for each household of four people.

 

The statistic includes spending on TV, Internet, movies, music, computer and video equipment, sports, amusement parks, and concerts.

 

By the way, the world spent $1.4 trillion on entertainment in 2010, according to the 12th Annual Edition of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook.

 

** Internet Overtakes Newspapers

Though the newspaper industry has stopped some of the bleeding and only declined 5% overall in 2010, the Internet has passed the industry in U.S. ad revenue.

According to Ad Age, this makes the Internet “the second-largest ad medium behind TV.”

Thus, the Standard and Poor’s S&P 500 Index has decided to drop The New York Times Company and replace it with Netflix, which has embarked on a new big effort to stream its movies and television programs over the Internet.

- Source:  The Wrap, 12/19/10.

 

** Top Talk Radio Shows

 

Source:  Talkers Magazine, Spring 2011.

 

Rush Limbaugh is still the King of Talk radio, with at least 15 million listeners, one million more than his closest rival, Sean Hannity, at 14 million, and six million more than Michael Savage, who’s broken away from the pack to become the third most popular talk show host in the U.S.

 

All of the leading top hosts lean toward a conservative, traditional perspective.

 

 

SHOW	MILLIONS OF LISTENERS
Rush Limbaugh	15.00
Sean Hannity	14.00
Michael Savage	9.00
Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Dave Ramsey	8.50
Laura Ingraham, Neal Boortz	6.00
Mike Gallagher, Michael Medved, Jerry Doyle	3.75
Jim Bohannon, Doug Stephan	3.75
Bill Bennett, Clark Howard, George Noory	3.50
Alan Colmes, Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller	2.75
Rusty Humphries, Thom Hartmann	2.75
Don Imus, Kim Komando, Dennis Miller	2.25
Hugh Hewitt, Mancow	1.75
Dennis Prager, Lars Larson	1.50
Lou Dobbs, G. Gordon Liddy, Bill Handel	1.00+
Rodger Hedgecock, Gordon Deal	1.00+

 

 

The above figures don’t include Internet listeners.

 

According to Talk Stream Live, among Internet listeners of talk radio hosts, Michael Savage actually comes in second to Rush Limbaugh, followed by Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Tammy Bruce, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, George Noory, Bill Bennett, and Dennis Miller rounding out the top ten.

 

** Top Political Websites

 

Source:  Movieguide® and www.ebizmba.com, 2011.

 

Conservatives may dominate talk radio, but the statistics on the Top 10 Political Websites show a more mixed result, with the radical leftist site The Huffington Post dominating the market share of online traffic with a commanding 54 million unique visitors per month.

 

Following The Huffington Post is the Drudge Report with 14 million unique visitors, and WorldNetDaily, the conservative website, tied with the center-left website Politico at five million unique visitors.

 

 

POLITICAL WEBSITE	UNIQUE MONTHLY VISITORS
The Huffington Post	54.0 million
Drudge Report	14.0 million
World Net Daily	5.0 million
The Politico	5.0 million
Salon	4.3 million
NewsMax	4.2 million
The Blaze	4.1 million
Real Clear Politics	2.0 million
The Hill	1.7 million
Daily Kos	1.6 million
Free Republic	1.5 million
Talking Points Memo	1.4 million
National Review	1.3 million
Townhall	1.0 million

 

 

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