When will newspaper movie listings go 'poof?'

Pali Research's Richard Greenfield predicts movie studios to stop advertising on newspapers

I'm a big movie fan and New York Times Sunday newspaper reader. I still find myself reading up on movies in the Sunday Times. But it's a rarity these days. Most of the time, I'm checking out SFGate.com for reviews and times on my iPhone.

It does beg the question: How well are brand marketing dollars doing for movie ads and listing in newspapers?

Richard Greenfield, analyst at Pali Research, just published a brief report on movie studio advertisements on newspapers. He pointed out that the AP recently that the two largest theater chains (Regal and AMC) would no longer be advertising movie showtimes in newspapers across the country. Just as online classified sites, such as Craigslist, have eaten away at the classified business for newspapers, social networks, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, will likely do the same for the movie studio advertising business. 

Here's what Richard wrote on his blog:

While the articles we have read on the subject focus on the loss of movie theater ad revenues, we suspect the larger issue is how long before movie studios stop advertising in the newspaper?

• If consumers are not going to the daily paper to find out what time a movie is playing, are they really learning about movies in newspapers to begin with?  In reality, the core movie going (youth) population is not even reading newspapers in the first place.
• We suspect movie studios could generate far greater awareness from their marketing spend by directing their advertising online, especially in social media; Facebook/Myspace/Twitter are the key places where consumers are learning about movies.

Newspapers waving goodbye to classifieds and movie showtimes, how long before local TV stations stop sending three people out into the snow storm to show viewers it’s snowing?  Technology is changing what consumers want out of local media, the question is can the legacy players evolve fast enough to stay alive (profitable)?

(Image source: Thenextweb.com)