My Cart - TV and cinema has always seemed to be a warring rivalry, even though they offer largely the same experience. It would seem that the two could co-exist peacefully because they cater to a different need; nobody would consider a TV watching session to be a serious event, equally nobody would head to the cinema every evening. But the rocketing cost of a cinema ticket and the increasingly cheap and available TVs and DVDs could be pushing this war into the hands of the television.
We all seem to accept the fact that the cinema is very expensive, we understand that they charge a lot for concessions and the price of an adult ticket has grown to the point where it is not much cheaper than the price you could pay to permanently own the film a few months later on DVD and these days even many cheap TVs are DVD player embedded. We go to the cinema for the experience, for the people, for the excitement of a new release and the theatrical element of the theatre and we are prepared to pay a premium for this. However, when it comes to television we are far less lenient; if an unsuccessful series or bad comedy show airs the broadcasting company will get floods of emails from indignant viewers angry that they paid their license fee for this to air even though the collective cost for the amount of broadcasting renders each night of entertainment practically free.
With cheap TVs available as well as DVDs or “smart TVs” that enable us to view movies in our own home for a fraction of the price, it is remarkable that we are still such harsh critics of what we allow on our televisions. The cinema has captured an essence where you can go see a trashy or by all standards terrible film and still consider yourself to have had a great evening. So TV and cinema clearly cater to different needs and it turns out that the true mark of a good film is not whether or not is smashes the box office on opening weekend, but just if it can stand up to the tele-test.
