{"id":1337,"date":"2011-11-21T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mediosmejoresqueganenmas.org\/?p=1337"},"modified":"2015-06-20T18:15:39","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T17:15:39","slug":"el-misterio-del-espectador-perdido-tiene-poco-que-ver-con-la-revolucion-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/revista\/el-misterio-del-espectador-perdido-tiene-poco-que-ver-con-la-revolucion-digital","title":{"rendered":"THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING SPECTATOR has little to do with the Digital Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>21 Minute, 39 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

An important producer mentioned his concern that film \u2013as in the complete experience of going to the cinema\u2013 was dying. There has been a progressive, constant and noteworthy decline in the number of spectators going to the movies over the last 30 years (not necessarily in the amount of money generated by these spectators, as box office prices have raised enormously during the same period).\u00a0\u00a0 In part, he blamed the economic crisis; but more importantly \u2013and along with many others in the business, he blamed \u201cvideos\u201d for the audience decline.\u00a0 Who would want to go out to the movie theater when you can enjoy the film right at home, for free or for little?<\/p>\n

Of course this sounds both logical and reasonable; however it lacks appropriate contextualization. Why?\u00a0 If \u201cvideos\u201d were the only culprit, then only the movie theaters would have seen their audiences decline, yet this is not the case. Around the world, television has also suffered a dramatic decline in its viewing public. For example: Let\u2019s recall that 10 years ago [1984] the most successful soap operas obtained close to 70 points of rating on the percent-of-TV-households scale,\u00a0 while just last year [1993] they barely managed to obtain 44 points [and when I updated this article in 1995, top\u00a0 ratings were around 30 points, only).\u00a0 Therefore, if the economic crisis were the culprit, we would have seen an increase in the number of TV viewers.\u00a0 Nevertheless, and in spite of it costing the viewer almost nothing, the open-TV viewing population has dwindled, too.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the decline in the number of spectators attending films in movie theaters began over thirty years ago. However, the economic crisis was not sharply felt in Mexico until two-and-a-half presidential mandates (fourteen years ago, at which time, our population was supposed “to enjoy the abundant benefits of our oil production”, according to the then president of Mexico).<\/p>\n

Not only have movie theaters lost a large part of their viewers; the continued existence of newspapers \u2013actual ink on paper\u2013 is in danger due to the huge decline of demand.\u00a0\u00a0 The heretofore leading magazines sold at newsstands have cut back the number of copies published by almost fifty percent (according to what they themselves declare to advertisers).\u00a0 Two examples:\u00a0 the magazine\u00a0 TVyNovelas<\/em> [Translation: TV and Soap Operas], which just two years ago published one million copies biweekly, only sells today 697,338 copies today [first trimester of 1995]; and the \u201cNovelas con Coraz\u00f3n\u201d series\u00a0 (translations of Mills&Boon\/Harlequin romances to Latin American Spanish, published under the collection names of Jazm\u00edn, Bianca, Julia, B\u00e1rbara [Cartland], Superromance<\/em> and Deseo<\/em>)\u00a0\u00a0 which published a total of 594,000\u00a0 copies per month at the beginning of 1991, today sell less than one-third of that number, according to their sources.<\/p>\n

…And yet the market for used books and magazines is at an all time high:\u00a0 One pays up to 50%\u00a0 for a used\u00a0 copy of a Jazm\u00edn (\u201cmore than 5 years old, please!\u201d), that will probably be battered, creased, soiled and dog-eared, and \u2026. hard-to-find, given that nobody is ready to sell theirs. You may pay even more for an old Libro Vaquero<\/em> [Translation: The Cowboy Book, a periodical, thick, comicbook]. The Classics<\/em> series of L\u00e1grimas, risas y amor<\/em> [Translation: Tears, laughter and love] will cost a lot more than their original price. And if we analyze the consumption of Mexican films, we need only take note of the degree of viewers\u2019 enjoyment of All\u00e1 en el Rancho Grande<\/em> [Translation: \u201cOut on the Big Ranch\u201d], or that obtained through watching movie classics from the Mexican Cinema Golden Age, like Pedro Infante\u2019s, Jorge Negrete\u2019s, Sara Garc\u00eda\u2019s and Joaqu\u00edn Pardav\u00e9\u2019s\u00a0 \u2013our incomparable \u201cDon Susanito\u201d [a renowned character that appeared in many unrelated movies, and whose name, if translatable, would roughly stand for “dear Mr. Susan”]\u2013.<\/p>\n

The \u201cmovie people\u201d are responsible for their own crisis. Those who work in the media have looked down on their public.<\/p>\n