Other than the year 2017, the number of movie tickets sold in the U.S. this year is the lowest since 1995.
Throughout last year, Americans purchased 1.244 billion movie admissions, which is five percent lower than last year and only a little higher than the number sold in 2017 — and 2017 is the worst year on record since 1995.
Admissions, obviously, are quite different from the box office gross, which is the number everyone watches throughout the year. The 2019 box office gross was pretty solid — $11.4 billion — down only four percent from 2018’s huge $11.88 billion.
Something that helped the 2019 gross stay afloat was a four percent jump in ticket prices, from an average of $9.16 to $9.37.
Grosses are one thing. The number of tickets sold is something entirely different; that’s the number that tells us how popular and influential movies are, and over the last 25 years, that number is going the wrong way.
Some perspective…
In 1995, the U.S. population sat at 265 million.
Today, the U.S. population is 330 million.
In other words, the U.S. population climbed by 20 percent between 1995 and 2019, and even with that massive increase 65 million more potential customers, ticket sales have stagnated.
Naturally, the sycophants in the entertainment media, like the far-left Deadline, are blaming everything and everyone but Hollywood. Get this… [emphasis added]:
Streaming and other leisure-time enticements appeared to take a bite out of movie ticket sales in 2019, with total admissions declining nearly 5% to 1.244 billion, according to the National Association of Theater Owners.
Although the 2019 tally was slightly higher than the 1.236 billion recorded in 2017, the totals for both 2017 and 2019 rank as the worst years for movie ticket buying since 1995.
While NATO has adamantly insisted that the rise of streaming only stimulates more theatrical moviegoing, there has never been a year like 2019 in terms of the caliber of features mounted by digital players.