Film Exhibition at Theaters

Comparison with Foreign Countries* The data of foreign countries are from:The United States of America (and Canada): Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)"Theatrical Home Entertainment Market Environment (THEME) Report" http://www.mpaa.org/research-and-reports/
France: Centre National du Cinema et de l'Image Animee(CNC)"Bilan du CNC" https://www.cnc.fr/creation-numerique/etudes-et-rapports/bilans
The United Kingdom: British Film Institute (BFI)"Statistical Yearbook" http://www.bfi.org.uk/education-research/film-industry-statistics-research/statistical-yearbook
Germany: Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA)"FFA Info" http://www.ffa.de/studien-und-publikationen.html
Australia: Screen Australia "Fact Finders" https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/
Korea: Korean Film Council 영화진흥위원회(KOFIC)”Korean Film Industry” http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/publications/books.jsp
Japan: “Film Almanac 2019” “Statistics: Various Statistics of the Major Countries of the World” (Kinema Jumpo-sha)

In this section, we will compare Japanese film exhibition at theaters with that in the seven countries: the United States of America(USA)/Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), Australia, and Korea, whose data are relatively easily obtained.

Attendance
Before we compare the film exhibition environments, we have to take the fact into consideration that Japan’s population has been
decreasing unlike these seven countries during the last 10 years. During these years, the USA, Canada, France, Korea, and the UK
have each increased their population by about 5%, and Australia has by 16%. In contrast, Japan has decreased its population annuallyand during the last 10 years by about 1%.
In 2018, attendance in the USA and Canada together was the largest, followed by the attendance of Korea, France, the UK, Japan,
Germany, and Australia; noting the UK increased its theater attendance largely and exceeded that of Japan. During the last 10 years,Korea has increased its attendance by close to 40%. On the other hand, Germany’s attendance decreased largely in 2018 and by 28%
compared with the attendance 10 years ago. The other five countries including Japan have not changed significantly (except the USAand Canada’s attendance together decreased by 8%). The methods of watching films have been diversified, like online streaming,
however, this has not much influenced the number of the people who watch films at theaters.
The number of films a person went to see annually (the attendance divided by the population) in Korea was the highest at 4.2 films.
Both the USA/Canada and Australia followed this number at 3.6 films, increased from the year before: 3.1 films for France, 2.7 films
for the UK, and 1.3 films for both Germany and Japan. Japan’s number was lower than others, and there is room for more audiences.
The number of screens in Japan is lower than that in other countries, but there are a considerable number of people who watch
films at public halls, etc., rather than at regular movie houses. If we take this into consideration, we realize that we do not know theexact numbers.

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Attendance (2009-2019)]

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Number of Films A Person Went to See Annually from 2009 to 2018]

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Film Exhibition at Theaters

Numbers of Theaters and Screens
In all seven countries, the number of screens during the last 10 years increased. Korea’s number, in particular, increased by morethan 40%, the UK’s increase was 19%, and both France’s and Australia’s increased by more than 10%. It is presumed the increase inmulti-screen theaters is behind these increases, similar to the situation in Japan.
The number of screens was highest in the USA, which was 40,575, more than 10 times of that in Japan, which were 3,581.
When the population per screen (the population divided by the number of screen) is lower, it means that there are more screens
near you. The population per screen in Japan was 35,211, and this means that there were much fewer screens compared with thosein other countries. The USA’s number of screens is the highest, and the population per screen was 8,063. In France, the population
per screen was 10, 871. In all 6 countries other than Japan, the population per screen is between 10,000 and 20,000. In Japan, thenumber of screens is one forth of that in the USA, one third of that in France, and one half of that in Korea, and there are not many
movie houses. The low average number of films a person went to see annually in Japan is related to the low number of screens.

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Number of Screens (2009-2018)]

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Population per Screen (2018)]

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Attendance per Screen (2009-2018)]

Box Office Income
In 2017, the box office income in Japan was the third largest, coming after the USA/Canada and China. The theater ticket price inJapan in 2017 was in average 1,310 yen (that in 2019 was 1,340 yen), relatively higher than that of other countries, and this is thereason why box office income was high while the average annual attendance per person was lower than other countries.
However, the average ticket price in Australia was equal to 1,215 yen, not much different from that in Japan, while its average annual
film attendance was 3.4, much higher than that of Japan.

Attendance and Box Office Income per Screen
The number of the annual attendance per screen (the annual attendance divided by the number of screen) was highest in Korea,
which number was 73,677, followed by Japan, which number was 47,121. Japan’s yearly box office income per screen was about
64,730,000 yen, which was the highest. Compared with other countries, Japan’s number of screen was low while its theater
admission was high, making the numbers of annual attendance per screen and the box office income high.

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The numbers of the annual attendance per screen and the box office income per screen in each country were both lower than thoseof ten years ago. While the number of screens has increased, the size of the audience has not.
During the last 10 years, in the UK, the number of screens increased by close to 20%, and in Australia by 15%, and their respective
attendance per screen decreased by 6,000 to 6,700. In 2018, the total attendance in Germany decreased and its attendance per
screen decreased by more than 9,000. The box office income per screen in the USA and Canada was 28,550,000 yen; in France, it was29,100,000 yen; in Germany, it was 30,530,000 yen; and these were less than half of that of Japan. The highest in Europe and North
America together was the UK’s 42,830,000 yen.

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Theater Admission and Box Office Income (2017)]

Public Support of Movie Houses
However, the above description does not lead to the conclusion that the movie house operations in Japan are easier than those inother countries. It is obvious that the situation is rather dire from the fact that non-multi-screen theaters are rapidly disappearing. Ifthe average box office income of Japan decreases to the level of those of Europe and North America, Japan’s theater operation will
not be feasible.
In Europe, a movie house is not necessarily a commercial theater (like the ones in Japan running films 5-6 times daily). Among thetheaters in Germany included in the “Film Exhibition Activities Almanac 2016”, there are theaters that close a day per week, andwhen they are open, they run films 2-3 times a day. Others run films only once a day or only from Friday to Sunday operated byvolunteer staff. In France and the UK, a facility counted as “a screen” can have diverse forms.
In every country, there are organizations administering the film industry and film culture, and promote and support various movie
houses and film exhibition activities. There are promotional policies towards film exhibitions at the national, local, and communitylevels. In Europe, there is the support system by Europa Cinema, a cultural organization under the EU.
Public support and promotional policies should cover more than mere financial support. Particularly, the theaters receiving public
supports and recognized as a place to participate in the community culture are required to present a variety of activities including
programming emphasizing their relationship with the community and other cultural organizations, development of the young
audiences, and film educational projects. Programmers responsible for these projects are also nourished. It inspires theaters andfilm exhibitors to increase their cultural profiles and sustainability in their communities.
In Japan, the number of areas with no theaters has been growing. To counter this, many areas have been active developing
community cinemas different from the conventional theaters where local people gather around film. These activities are not having a
big impact on the film industry, however, they are important in energizing local film culture and cultural activities in communities. We
must consider employing film exhibition promotional policy in order to make various types of theaters and diverse ways ofscreenings possible.

The Ratio of Multi-Screen Theaters
The ratio of multi-screen theaters has consistently increased since 2010 in each country. The ratio of multi-screen theaters washighest in Korea with 93.8%, 2,756 screens out of Korea’s nationwide total of 2,937 screens. The total number of screens of othertypes was constantly decreasing but began to increase from 2014 and by 64 screens between 2014 and 2018. The number of theaters
increased from 91 in 2017 to 99 in 2018. In Japan, other types of theaters increased by 7 screens and 5 theaters from 2017 to 2018.
Multi-screen theaters have occupied a major place in each country. However, the number of these theaters in France and the UK are
not so high compared with the numbers in the other three European countries. Particularly in France, the ratio of multi-screen3Film Exhibition at Theaters

theater was as low as 43.2%, and the number of multi-screen theaters was 226, while that of other types was 1,814, much more thanthe former. (In France, the definition of a multi-screen theater is the one with more than 8 screens, while that of other countries isthe one with more than 5 screens. This difference affects France’s statistics.) In France, there were 2040 theaters, close to fourtimes as many as the 587 theaters in Japan, making people feel that they are close to theaters even in middle- and small-sized
cities, towns, and villages.

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Ratio of Multi-screen Theaters and Their Number of Screens (2012-2018)]

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Ratio of Multi-Screen Theaters and Their Number of Theaters (2017-2018)]

In Japan and Korea, the numbers of films released were each more than 1,000. Particularly in Korea, during the last several years,
the number of films released has been rapidly increasing and as many as 1,646 films were released.
Only in France and Japan, the domestic film share was more than 50%. In Japan, from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, many more
foreign films were released than Japanese films. However, since 2008, more Japanese films have ben released than foreign films.
During the last several years, the number of foreign films released has been also increasing. In 2019, the ratio between Japaneseand foreign films released matched the ratio of their box office incomes at 54% to 46%. This proportion was well balanced comparedwith that of other countries.

Comparison with Foreign Countries [Number of Films Released (2011-2018)]

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