Advertised Show Times

[Harold Hallikainen]

Lawmaker proposes bill to have theaters advertise the actual movie showtime on tickets

https://www.kfvs12.com/2025/01/24/la...wtime-tickets/
By Amanda Callahan, Zoe Strothers and Emily Van de Riet

Published: Jan. 24, 2025 at 2:15 PM MST|Updated: 19 hours ago WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB/Gray News) – A state senator in Connecticut wants movie theaters to advertise the correct movie showtime on tickets.

State Senator Martin Looney is proposing a bill that would require movie theaters to post two times on tickets: the start time of the previews, and the actual start time of the movie.

Movie theaters currently post the start time of the trailers on tickets, leaving guests having to guess what time the actual movie starts.

Sometimes, previews can last just 15 minutes, but sometimes they last more than 30.

Looney said he knows most people account for those extra minutes before a movie, but that it is an abuse of people’s time and that they shouldn’t have to do the math.

He said while this bill could come across as a more frivolous issue, it’s something that impacts moviegoers across the board.

“There are usually bigger issues than movie times, and I’m a sponsor of most of those, as you may know. But this is something that’s a matter of truth in advertising and that people are complaining about,” Looney said. “I’ve gotten a number of calls from constituents that say, ‘Oh, yeah, I feel that that’s outrageous that I’m stuck there for a half an hour watching stuff before a movie actually starts and make me late for dinner after I had to pay a babysitter more.’ Those are real practical issues that come up.”

Looney said the only pushback he’s received on this bill is from theater managers who want people in their seats to watch previews.

He expects this proposal to pass across the aisle because people from both parties value their time.

Copyright 2025 WFSB via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Leo Enticknap]

The issue he could run up against is contracts between advertisers and theaters that specifically prohibit theaters from advertising separate show start and feature start times, to make it more difficult for customers to time their arrival to avoid seeing the ads. I don't know if this is the case here, but when I worked in cinemas in England in the '90s and early '00s it absolutely was. At one cinema I worked at, it was even a firing offense for the box office staff to answer a phone query with the actual feature start time, and the weekly running sheet (a document that actually had that information, for ushers, concessionists, etc. to refer to) was never to be left in view of the public. Apparently Pearl and Dean (one of the two major advertising agencies that distributed ads to cinemas in the UK at that time) had threatened legal action against the chain because some other sites had been including show start and feature start times in their weekly newspaper ad/listing.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Wouldn’t a law void any such clauses? I’m not saying it would be smooth sailing, but I’m not sure they could cite their contracts to avoid compliance.

[Martin McCaffery]

I know I don't know how long the trailers will be from week to week at my single screen theatre, I'm sure the multiplexes are not keeping careful track of every show. As someone who HATES getting 40mins of trailers and crap at the beginning of a movie, I don't see how they can possibly craft a law that would work in this day of being able to buy tickets more than a week in advance. Not to mention last minute content changes.
I think this is a situation where it is up the the audience, or potential audience to let the theatres know why they aren't attending, and then stick to it.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I know I don't know how long the trailers will be from week to week at my single screen theatre, I'm sure the multiplexes are not keeping careful track of every show. As someone who HATES getting 40mins of trailers and crap at the beginning of a movie, I don't see how they can possibly craft a law that would work in this day of being able to buy tickets more than a week in advance. Not to mention last minute content changes.
I think this is a situation where it is up the the audience, or potential audience to let the theatres know why they aren't attending, and then stick to it.

Yeah that "start of trailers" published time is pretty problematic. One potentially starts advertising tickets long before show playlists are finalized with trailers. It smells of not asking for industry's perspective for sure. Rather than trailer start times. They could more reliably advertise "doors" and "feature" times... there will be trailers... but a variable amount of them. But that sort of published times is exactly what the advertisers and studios don't want, for "reasons". ;-)

But one has to ask if these are hills worth dying on if it means the continued erosion and frustration of the exhibition going audience, whom are all precious at this point.

[Steve Guttag]

Legally, there is almost always a line in a contract that prohibits the contract from contradicting a law and that the contract is not voided due to one portion being deemed unenforceable by virtue of "severability."

I'm sure that if the legislators were presented with the dilemma of an unknown preshow length that they would counter with that you should just publish the feature start time and be sure that is when the feature starts and hope that people come in advance of that to get their goodies and catch the preshow.

I think what really sparked this sort of legislative effort would be the preshow advertising that is not mere trailers. Few movie patrons mind seeing trailers (unless you get too excessive). But they don't want ads running at the posted show time. One would think that an entity like NATO could lobby such a legislative effort to allow the posted time to be when the actual trailers start. I don't think legislators would be sympathetic to a theatre's desires to runs outright ads. Nobody wants to pay a premium (a movie theatre ticket) and then be advertised to...and have their departure time delayed to do it.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I agree Ads are probably the root complaint, but at least some cited complaints had to do with unknown conclusion times, which also makes sense given other life requirements. Advertising a runtime means nothing if the amount of padding before the feature starts is an unknown.

they could also compromise and just state that the feature must start within 15min of the advertised time. That would force both trailers and ads to conform to a maximum schedule.

If the industry had just done something like this informally already and not pushed the boundaries, I doubt legislation would have even been considered.

[Steve Guttag]

95% of our clients that use an automated TMS to build shows, have the trailer start time as the published time. So, if you show at 7:00 for a 7:00 show...you come in on the first trailer, not any ads. I would think that there would be pushback on the 15-minute time as it is bad law. How did you come up with 15-mintues? Why not 16? why not 14?...etc.

You don't want government getting into profitability decisions of a business like that. One should presume that a business is going to do what it does based on it making the most sense for that business. The approach, based on the article presented at the top of this thread is keeping it under the banner of "false advertising" and consumer protection. The legislature is responding to complaints from their constituents. I don't see anything nefarious there. It is reasonable to believe that a legislator wouldn't have a clue about how to run any particular business, including cinema. Normally, when something like this comes up, there is a period set aside for discussion/comment before it goes to a vote to ensure there is opportunity for the lawmakers to become better informed (lobbied). As I said, NATO should be all over this to ensure cinema owners' voices are heard too.

Like so many things, you can push people to a point. But at some point, you are going to get push-back. And, perhaps, that has happened in Connecticut. Personally, I think ads have been out of hand for some time (even going back to the "slides" which really trashed up presentations. I don't begrudge theatres making money but I do think that when you do such things, people value your premium business a bit less. So long as the ads are before the published time, I don't think that they really care (the patrons). After the published time, you are on the patron's time...right down to any child care they may be paying for. It goes towards the perception that going to the movies are expensive. Short-term profits in ads can, and probably have, hurt long-term viability.

I hope, if they enact such a law, it is one that theatres can live with. And believe me...once it starts, you'll see it across all 50-states.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Honestly my 15min thought came from live theatre events that frequently “hold” for long ticket/bar lines or other reasons such as weather or parking. Below 15 is just part of the industry norms, beyond 20 gets info excessive waits that can be viewed as true delays.

But yeah I agree industry has to get their side heard and lobby for something they can both implememt and live with, if they are not trying to kill the idea entirely.

[Jim Cassedy]

I wish somebody would pass a law to keep politicians from proposing laws like this.

[Martin Brooks]

The issue he could run up against is contracts between advertisers and theaters that specifically prohibit theaters from advertising separate show start and feature start times, to make it more difficult for customers to time their arrival to avoid seeing the ads. I don't know if this is the case here, but when I worked in cinemas in England in the '90s and early '00s it absolutely was. At one cinema I worked at, it was even a firing offense for the box office staff to answer a phone query with the actual feature start time, and the weekly running sheet (a document that actually had that information, for ushers, concessionists, etc. to refer to) was never to be left in view of the public. Apparently Pearl and Dean (one of the two major advertising agencies that distributed ads to cinemas in the UK at that time) had threatened legal action against the chain because some other sites had been including show start and feature start times in their weekly newspaper ad/listing.

Nothing to do with avoiding seeing ads because the ads are part of the preshow. The times theaters (in the U.S) post today on their websites and their "tickets" (at least insofar as Regal and AMC are concerned), is post pre-show, when the trailers start. Anyone who doesn't want to see the trailers can simply show up 20 minutes later. It's not rocket science, except to idiots
You know what's going happen if they start posting the time the actual movie starts? People will be coming in 5-10 minutes after the feature starts

We've got so many problems -for a politician to get involved with this is completely ridiculous. It's so trivial.

[Harry Smolin]

Our observation has been that any time we run more than 10 minutes of trailers after the listed start time, we get complaints, so we've set it down to a 10-minute limit of usually 3-4 trailers depending on length. We used to run up to 12 or 13 minutes of trailers on bigger movies to give the concessions line extra time to get through, but have since shortened it to 10 minutes or less, including cell phone and Atmos bumpers. We run all our Screenvision ads before the listed start time and start the trailers at the listed start time.

[Leo Enticknap]

Part of the problem is the ads themselves. In my projectionist years ('90s and '00s, then again briefly in the teens), ads for the movie theater were expected to have higher production values and be, well, entertaining, in a way that TV ads were not. Advertisers understood that you were paying to be at the theater, and would only tolerate being advertised to if their ad was a seriously good one. As an example, this was one of my favorites from those days, and it frequently got audible giggles in the house. Sorry to come across as an old git, but the ads pushed by the likes of Screenvision to theaters now are the same ones that go to streaming, the social media apps, and so on, with the result that it's not surprising that audiences resent being confronted with them immediately after paying anywhere between $10-20 to walk into the theater.