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Really? 51% of Teens First Hear of New Movies From the Internet?

by Alex Billington
August 29, 2007
Source: The Movie Blog

A peculiar bit of news came across my desk the other morning right as we made our way into PC Mag's Top 100 Undiscovered Websites. It was the headline: 51% of Teens First Hear of New Movies From the Internet from over at The Movie Blog. The reason this is worthwhile mentioning is because of how much the film industry and specifically marketers, advertising reps, and even movie theater general managers, seem to still misunderstand the power and the reach of the internet.

I know I hate it, but I know it's (probably) the most effective - TV. I always hear from numerous friends about a new trailer they saw on TV during commercials, and yet that's the last place I'd ever find anything. Of course I'm scouring the internet searching to always bring the best to you. According to the study done at Yahoo News, 51% of "teens" today first hear about new movies via the internet, broken down into these results.

15% discover new films from entertainment Web sites.
15% from social networking sites.
13% from video-sharing sites.
8% from movie-ticket sites.

Simply considering the fact that a majority discover movies from the internet to begin with is an important number, but looking further at that break down, it's exciting to see "entertainment Web sites" like FS.net being the largest percent. However, that doesn't mean much besides a statistic that this industry continues to ignore, leaving us in the cold fighting for interviews and press coverage. As John at The Movie Blog describes it, the movie studios are "falling behind the curve" and that couldn't be truer.

And the other thing you can't forget is that not all of us are teens anymore. As much as I'd love to have these statistics pertain to each and every one of us who are right now reading this sentence, unfortunately that's just not the case. It strikes hard when you realize you're no longer a "teen," but maybe you smile when you think you're above and beyond that demographic. Either way, this news is poignant no matter who you are and what industry you're in, because it's showing the increasing power of the internet.

As a reader you're wondering how this would affect you? What if we could bring better coverage, more footage, and more of everything you want because the movie studios decided to cooperate more. Or how about discovering potential indie gems thanks to the dedicated work of editors and webmasters like myself. The movie studios really need to start paying a lot more attention to the internet, and what better time than now and what better place than here!

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