51% Of Teens First Hear About New Movies From The Internet

Our friends at FirstShowing and The Movie Blog have reported an interesting new statistic: 51% of Teens First Hear About New Movies From the Internet. Like John and Alex, I find this figure interesting because it still seems that most of the movie studios are still living in the dark ages. They believe that print publications are 1000 times more important that online media, and as a result, online journalists are not treated with the respect that we deserve.

This week I've had a series of e-mails with one of the major studios (I won't mention who) because of an issue with a late Thursday night press screenings (Print press is invited to a screening earlier in the week, bu online journalists are sent to a late thursday night screening, for a movie coming out on Friday. This type of treatment results in rushed and badly written reviews. Oh yeah, and resentment towards thoses studios and the films they release. Hmmmm, may-be they should treat us better?).

Yahoo's report claims that 51% of teens hear about new movies from the internet. Here is a break-down of those results:

15% discover new films from entertainment Web sites.

15% from social networking sites.

13% from video-sharing sites.

8% from movie-ticket sites.

John says that movie studios are "falling behind the curve, and I couldn't agree more. The online buzz and movie news sites like /Film, The Movie Blog, and FirstShowing has an large effect on the teen age movie-goers (and isn't that the targeted demographic?).

I would even venture to say that aside from pull-quotes (you know, those review quotes that appear on the movie posters and on televison advertising), the online buzz has much more to do with the opening weekend box office than any studio executive could understand. And sure, they'll bring up Snakes on a Plane and Grindhouse, and use those films as an example of how online buzz does not sell tickets. Because it wasn't the way the studio's marketing departments tried to promoted those films that hurt the eventual release. It must be that online buzz doesn't translate into box office success. It's the same type of oversimplified thinking that brought us to Iraq. But I digress.