Projects by
Thomas Greiner
greinr.com blog
web log
 Number Crunching
subscribe
follow
flattr

Behind the Statistics of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

published on March 22, 2013

The MPAA recently released their annual Theatrical Market Statistics which included some interesting numbers but one number was missing (in all of them): the number of people who watched a movie. However, it contained both the Box Office numbers and the ticket prices per year. Based on those two numbers (for U.S. and Canada) I calculated the numbers of movie-goers per year which are shown in those charts (they're not scientific, just some quick data visualization).

Ticket prices are rising and the Box Office numbers too but there are less and less people going to the theaters. So why are people still surprised when newer movies are much more likely to rise to the top of the Box Office list? Furthermore why is the ranking of most popular movies based on Box Office numbers rather than how many people actually watched it?

Box Office vs. Total Audience (North America) Box Office vs. Total Audience (North America)
MPAA Theatrical Market Statistics MPAA Theatrical Market Statistics

Sources:

#MPAA #movies #cinema #stats
tweet
share