Digital screens grow all over Europe

http://www.mediasalles.it/dgt_online/index.htm

In 12 months Europe’s digital screens have grown by 70%: these are the latest figures published by MEDIA Salles, whophotographed the situation at 1st January 2009. The analysis, presented at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, during the seminar conducted by the European Audiovisual Observatory, for which MEDIA Salles last year became official provider of statistics on the new technologies, shows that the number of DLP Cinema or Sony 4K projectors has risen from 897 to 1,529. The number of cinemas fitted with at least one digital screen has grown to 815 with a 48% rise compared to twelve months previously. The fact that every site has an average of 1.9 digital screens compared to the previous 1.6 is confirmation that exhibitors are increasingly converting more than one screen per cinema to the new technology, both in order to offer digital screenings during the whole of a film’s commercial run and to offer greater flexibility in the face of changing demands.

2008 has experienced a rise not only in digital installations but also in the countries where the new projection technology has been introduced: with the new entries – Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Malta and Romania – the number has increased to 30. If we can affirm that a little under 5% of all Europe’s cinemas have converted to digital, it must be remembered that in this field, too, each market proceeds at its own pace.
In absolute terms, the United Kingdom once again comes “top of the list” with 303 screens distributed mostly within the Digital Screen Network, the first public initiative in Europe, approved in 2005, to support the digital transition in cinemas. Due to the lack of further public financing, however, the growth in screen numbers has slowed down, to the extent that in 2008 there were only 19 new installations.

France, on the contrary, is rapidly catching up with the United Kingdom, having increased the number of its digital screens almost fourfold and growing to 253 compared to 66 the previous year. This growth is mainly due to CGR, the third largest exhibition company in France, which has commenced conversion of its approximately 400 screens on the basis of a VPF agreement signed with Arts Alliance Media. France has even outstripped Germany which, after having conceived the project known as “model 100” to finance digital transition, is now taking time out for reflection. This is demonstrated by the fact that in 2008 the number of digital theatres increased by 10 only, to reach 161. A more dynamic picture emerges in a series of territories with diverse characteristics: both markets that already had a significant digital base with respect to the total number of screens, i.e. above the European average, and countries that up to the beginning of 2008 proved to be little interested in the new technologies in terms of their overall screen numbers.

The first group includes Austria, growing from 35 to 84 units, Luxembourg (from 13 to 21), the Netherlands (from 34 to 56), Norway (from 35 to 48) and Iceland (from 3 to 7). The second group embraces Switzerland (from 16 to 28) and, even more so, Italy, which during 2008 more than doubled its digital screens (from 38 to 80 units), as well as countries that triple their figures, such as Portugal (from 14 to 44) and the Russian Federation (from 31 to 90), or increase them fourfold, such as Bulgaria (from 4 to 17), or even six times, like Poland (from 8 to 53). Amongst the “new entries” Romania stands out, with a leap from zero to 14 digital projectors.

All this activity shows that there are now 7 countries that boast a digital screen density of over 10% with two, Belgium (18.8%) and above all Luxembourg (75%), that leave the European average far behind them, thanks mainly to the initiative of Utopolis and Kinepolis, companies that opted for digital some time ago. As regards the economic model used to finance the transition, Europe continues to follow a line that relies mainly on the exhibition companies’ own resources, integrated at times by public financing. What motivates private investment in the new technologies is mainly the potential development in demand that the cinema industry sees in 3D. This is confirmed by the figures on the first few months of 2009, when the launch of world premières such as Bolt, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Monsters vs Aliens saw a new wave of digital screen installations, which it is believed will be partly amortized by the higher price that audiences are willing to pay for this novel product.

The economic model known as VPF, whose widespread adoption was one of the engines of growth in the first phase of large-scale digitalization in the United States, has started to have followers in Europe, too: as well as the above-mentioned CGR, Cineplexx Kinobetriebe in Austria and ZON Lusomundo in Portugal also announced in 2008 that they had signed contracts foreseeing the figure of the so-called “integrator”. Briefly, “adelante, con juicio”: Europe is proceeding in its digital transition, but is not in a rush.

Elisabetta Brunella