LOS ANGELES, Oct. 7 - As Hollywood continues to worry about the decline at the box office, a new study suggests that the movie industry is being jilted by the one audience it has pursued most ardently for at least two decades: young males.
In a survey of 2,000 moviegoers by OTX, a Los Angeles-based online research company, men under 25 said they had seen 24 percent fewer movies this summer than they did in the summer of 2003, when the same study was conducted. The drop in moviegoing was much smaller for women and for other age groups. The study used a random, nationally representative sample of moviegoers who were queried online in August. There is a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Instead, young men ages 13 to 25 reported that they were busy surfing the Web, instant-messaging with friends and playing video games on consoles like PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
The study also found that people who were attending movies less often were doing so because of the cost.
The study, which will be released next week, quantifies what many in Hollywood have theorized this year, as box office revenues have dropped 7 to 10 percent, namely that the increased competition for leisure time from the Internet and interactive gaming has eroded the movie audience.
But the study highlights that this erosion is occurring most deeply among those who were once most enthusiastic about going to the movies, and at whom Hollywood has long been aiming its wares: young males.
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yestheyrereel
This is your standing invitation to the Crime Fiction Pictures hospitality suite, aka Jon & Graham & Will & Other Jon & Ben & Alex & David & Marc & Kirsten's festival week condo, at the PowderWood (snicker) in Park City. We arrive 16 Jan, and leave 23 Jan, and for this entire week, my sole reasons for living will be blogging and drinking vodka at the hotel then riding around in our Suburban trying to get photographed snorting lines of powdered sugar off promotional DVD jewelcases. Since all this works much better with an entourage in tow, I need an entourage in tow. And that's where you come in. Come in ridiculously puffy jackets and plastic sunglasses, brandishing small handguns, pilferable Sidekicks, and powdered-sugar spoons.
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