COMMERCIALS Movie ad business to join E! on screen

The advertising trend is raking in the bucks for movie theaters.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NEW YORK -- Coming to a movie theater near you: Show biz gossip, juicy news tidbits and TV show previews -- all from E! Entertainment Television.
Think going to the movies is just for watching flicks? Think again.
Screenvision -- the movie advertising company that has some fans grousing about being bombarded with commercials in the theater -- is about to shake up screens once again.
New York-based Screenvision is set to strike a deal with cable network E!, to spruce up its before-the-movie, "preshow."
Snappy features
Instead of just running big screen ads -- like Robert De Niro's American Express spot or the Hummer commercial featuring modern dancers with chairs -- Screenvision's adding snappy entertainment features, like E!'s gossipy "The Soup," in between the spots.
The goal is to keep fans tuning in. Screenvision's main rival, National CineMedia, is doing much the same with its own 20-minute package of show biz pieces that run before the previews at theater chains like AMC.
"If we provide a better show, consumers will be more entertained and they will pay more attention," Screenvision CEO Matthew Kearney told the New York Daily News.
The E! deal is the latest twist in the fast-rising cinema ad biz.
Chains rake it in
The advertising phenomenon is ringing up big dollars for movie theater chains. Some 27,000 movie screens have gone commercial in just the past few years, and more are on the way. Last year, on-screen advertising revenues grew 20 percent to $438 million, as blue-chip advertisers like M & amp;M's, Revlon and Gillette signed on. With demand growing, ad rates are rising 10 percent a year, Kearney said.
Cinema advertising started in the early 1900s during the rise of the movie biz. Ads that look like TV commercials -- as opposed to static ad slides -- started up in the 1980s, with advertisers like Pepsi.
While the trend took off in Europe, it never really gathered steam here as theaters were afraid of upsetting moviegoers.
But theater chains became much more receptive to tapping advertisers after falling on hard times financially in recent years.
The commercials are having a big impact on consumers, Screenvision claims. According to its own research, moviegoers who watch commercials at the movies are 44 percent more likely to remember them than those who saw them on the small screen at home.