Essay 1: What factors led to the decline of town or city centres cinemas in the kate 1970s and early 1980s?

"What factors led to the decline of town or city centres cinemas in the late 1970 and early 1980s?"

3 factors social technological and economic 

Point 1: coming out of a recession, film companies created sfx films as they made money, and these films were not distributed to flea pits.

Point2: the development of vhs led to the decline of cinema attendance and the only way to attract audiences back was to show sfx movies 

Point 3: the main demographic for cinema attendance was teenagers, they wanted to see the new state of the art films in the new state of the art cinemas, something a flea pit could not do.

Point4:  Mass marketing attracted these kids, which was then only shown in the multiplex. This created the event movie which was only available at multiplexes

There are three factors that led to the decline of town or city cinemas, more commonly known as fleapits. Social decline among adults through the global recession and the rise of the teenage demographic, technological advancement such as the reoccurring use of special effects and the development and popularity of VHS and finally the economic fall due to the recession.

As the UK was coming out of a global recession, economic standards among adults dropped significantly as they did not have disposable income to spend on trips to the cinema. Production companies were aware of such factors are were not willing to the take the risk of creating a character driven film which could potentially not make significant income if not none. This led to the formulaic creation of SFX driven movies such as E.T, these style over substance films were then only distributed to multiplexes which had more screens and seats with better quality sound and visual effects screens and equipment. This meant that fleapits were not being given the rights to show these SFX driven blockbusters which was generating the most income, subsequently putting them out of business and raising the audience attendance at multiplexes.

During the late 70s and the early 80s the development of VHS was a major breakthrough in the technology of film, it allowed families to watch newly released films in the comfort of their own home, it also enabled them to have money in the long run as videos were cheaper than a cinema ticket. Although this was a great jump in the entertainment industry it did lower the audience attendance in local cinemas. This was done by two factors, one, any films that would be shown in a fleapit could be easily purchased on VHS and  two the hollywood production and distribution companies were aware that to receive the best possible experience (sound and visually) you would have to see it in a state of the art cinema e.g a multiplex. So it would create these blockbusters to attract back the audiences. This led to the demise and neglect of the fleapit as it could not compete with the superior state of the art multiplexes with its formulaic but successful style over substance films.