3.3 Exhibitors' takings 
 
Annual revenue of EU exhibitors
 
The results which appear in Table 20 are the balance between the ticket price and the rate of taxes levied by the public authorities. We must state that they only give a partial view of the revenues of exhibitors. We should look beyond that relationship; the additional revenues from the cinema (such as from the confectionery sold) represent a crucial part of the turnover of exhibitors. By ticket sold, exhibitors receive the largest share expressed in ECU in the Netherlands, and, to a lesser extent, in France, Ireland and Germany. This is because, in the Netherlands, exhibitors have succeeded both in raising the ticket price and in appropriating an important proportion of cinema revenues; France owes its classification to a policy of high ticket prices amongst the exhibitors; Ireland because of a favourable relationship that benefits the exhibitors over the distributors.  
 
Calculating the European exhibitors' average revenues per screen gives a sum of 63,000 ECU per year. In the majority of the countries studied, the revenue per screen is very close to the European average, with the notable exceptions of Greece (which is partly explained by the fact that many cinemas only open for six months per year, but which remains weak even if it is annualized) and, at the other extreme, the UK, Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland.
 
In terms of annual revenues per screen, the countries in which the industry is most intense are the UK, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands (which heads the European league table). In the Netherlands, the high level of ticket prices combines with low rentals to benefit the exhibitors. In Ireland, commercial conditions and a high number of admissions provide the favourable factors. In Belgium and the United Kingdom, the good financial results are more positively linked to the "return" on the cinemas, due to the "multiplex" effect. The good position of Spanish cinemas is undoubtedly less significant, as it is linked largely to the large capacity of screens. The large countries where the screens are numerous and concentrated in smaller size multiplexes, (France, Germany) are characterised by lower average revenues per cinema.

  
 Table 20: Exhibitors' revenues by country (1992) 
Country
Average ticket price (ECU)
Total tax per ticket (ECU)
Average price per ticket net of tax 
(ECU)
Exhibitors share of ticket price including tax
%
Exhibitors share of ticket price net of tax 
(ECU)
Exhibitors average share of annual box office receipts (ECU '000)
Belgium
4.26
0.60
3.66
51%
1.87
72
Denmark
4.84
1.26
3.58
53%
1.90
52
France
5.11
0.88
4.23
53%
2.20
58
Germany
4.32
0.40
3.92
55%
2.16
62
Greece
2.85
0.46
2.39
50%
1.20
13
Ireland
3.38
0.42
2.96
67%
1.98
82
Italy
4.45
0.95
3.50
41%
2.30
52
Netherlands
5.51
0.93
4.58
61%
2.79
92
Portugal
2.63
0.18
2.45
50%
1.22
62
Spain
2.75
0.20
2.55
47%
1.22
55
UK
3.92
0.82
3.10
59%
1.83
108
Average Weighted
4.19
0.65
3.54
53%
1.93
63
 
 Conclusion
 
With only a few exceptions, and despite the important differences in structure of the sector and in levels of taxation, there is still an alignment of revenues received by exhibitors per cinema for all the countries within the Community. We notice once more the positive economic impact of the creation of multiplexes. The UK, in particular, is different from the rest of Europe when it comes to revenues from the high income cinemas: intense activity in the multiplexes results in a considerable increase in occupancy rate per seat per showing, and a high level of activity (cinemas open all year round, with numerous showings per week); it optimizes the exhibitors' returns within an integrated market. The negative impact of a rise in number of sites on the average revenue of an exhibitor is also worth noting (France, Germany, Italy).
  
But these results do not prove that a decrease in the size of the sector automatically increases the revenues of the rest of the exhibitors. Greece provides a counter example here; it illustrates that if the density of sites falls beneath a certain threshold, the entire economy of the exhibition industry is threatened.