Digital and 3D rooms gain ground in Spain

According to the tenth Census of Aimc's movie theaters, digital rooms have increased by 73% and 3D. Catalonia with 750, Andalusia with 686 and Madrid with 548 are the communities with the largest number of rooms. More than half of the rooms of Asturias, Madrid and the Canary Islands are already digitized.

You can already know the latest trends in the film rooms in Spain with the tenth census of movie theaters that AIMC (Association for Media Research) has just prepared with the collaboration of its associates Discine, Movierecord and Yelmo.

This document, which provides one of the most precise visions of the panorama of the film exhibition in Spain, based on the previous census, dated April 1, 2011, and has been completed through an important research work. The basic units analyzed are local exhibition, screens/rooms and seats, and the date of April 1, 2012 has been taken as a reference.

Mild descent of rooms/screens, premises and seats

Within a stability context that has been maintained since 2009, this year there is a slight decrease in the number of premises, rooms/screens and seats.
The number of exhibition premises is 756, decreasing in 7 stores (-0.9%) with respect to the last census. The number of rooms/screens is also reduced compared to the previous year (from 3,932 to 3,886, with 91 high and 137 casualties). A slight decrease (-1.2%) if we compare with the situation a year ago, although, in general terms, it can be talked about stability in the last three years (with figures around 3,900 rooms/screens). As for the number seats, it is set at 888,747, producing a decrease of 10,203 (-1.1%).
A significant fact is the progressive increase in the percentage of rooms/screens in premises of 10 or more rooms that have gone from 10.8% of 1998 to practically half (48.3%) in 2012.

Great advance in the digitalization of rooms

The rooms/screens with digital projector are already 1,608 (41.4%), which represents a strong increase of 680 screens and 17.8 percentage points in one year. If we look at the number of premises, 360 (47.6%, almost half) already have at least a digital room.

Spain has 887 rooms with capacity to project in 3D, representing 22.8% of the total. There is also an increase in this type of rooms compared to 2011 (+152 / +4.1 points), although it is more moderate than in the case of digital. 339 stores (that is, 44.8%) have at least a 3D room in their facilities.

In absolute terms, the communities with more rooms of these types are Madrid (with 309 digital rooms and 152 in 3D), Catalonia (with 302 and 163) and Andalusia (with 226 and 111). At the other extreme, there are La Rioja (16 Digital and 9 3D), Cantabria (14 and 8) and Ceuta and Melilla (1).

In relative terms, the communities where digital rooms already suppose more than half are Asturias (58.1%), Madrid (56.4%) and Canary Islands (55.1%). And among the lowest proportion are the Valencian Community (34.2%), Murcia (33.3%), Andalusia (32.9%), Castilla-La Mancha (31.0%) and Ceuta and Melilla (12.5%). As for communities with the highest percentage of 3D rooms are Canary Islands (36.1%), Aragon (30.9%), Asturias (29.7%), Basque Country (29.6%) and Galicia (29.5%). At the other extreme are Castilla-La Mancha (17.8%), Valencian Community (17.8%), Andalusia (16.2%), Murcia (14.5%) and Ceuta and Melilla (12.5%).
It is interesting to note that 55% (+2 points compared to 2011) of the Spanish population resides in municipalities where there is at least a digital/3D room.

The Catalans, Andalusians and Madrid have the largest number of rooms

The communities with the highest number of rooms are Catalonia with 750, Andalusia with 686 and Madrid with 548, which together group half of those existing in Spain. Regarding the ranking by provinces Madrid with 548 Salas is first position, followed by Barcelona (516), Valencia (206) and Alicante (179).

The number of municipalities with, at least, a film room is 466 (1 less than in the previous census), which represents 5.7% on the total, existing on average approximately 1.5 premises and 8.5 rooms per municipality with cinema. 63.1% of the Spanish population (identical figure to the previous year) resides in one of these municipalities with film.

On the other hand, there are 2,642 rooms (68.0%) located in populations greater than 50,000 inhabitants. In addition, 95.7% of people living in these municipalities have cinema in their town, compared to individuals from populations under 50,000 inhabitants where only 27.4% have it.

Stability in the average room per place and seats per room

The tendency to stability regarding the characteristics of theaters started four years ago is maintained. The average room / screen seats is maintained in 230 units in this last year, compared to continued descents that were appreciated every year from the 336 seats of 1998 to 232 of 2009. And 5.1 rooms (compared to 5.2 in 2011) has, on average, each place, a figure that previously had been growing without stopping from 2.8 of 1998 until 5.1 in 2009. Sala capacity is usually larger, with 660 average seats compared to 218 of the conventional ones. However, the average room per place in this type of cinemas is lower: 1.2 rooms compared to 5.7 of the conventional ones.

59.3% of the premises, that is, a total of 448, have more than one room/screen. The Kinépolis cinemas (25 rooms) in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), Cinesa Parc Vallés (24 rooms) in Terrassa (Barcelona), Cinesa Las Rozas (24 rooms) in Las Rozas (Madrid) and Kinépolis Valencia (24 rooms) in Paterna (Valencia), occupy the first positions to this respect.

There are approximately 82 film rooms per million inhabitants, two less than in the previous census delivery and ten less than in 2007. The communities that appear with 95 or more rooms per million are La Rioja (139), Navarra (103) and Catalonia (99). The highest density provinces are, in this order, La Rioja, Tarragona, Girona, Lleida, Álava and Guipúzcoa, which exceed 110 rooms per million inhabitants. On the opposite side are the communities of Ceuta and Melilla (50), Extremadura (51), Castilla-La Mancha (61) and Cantabria (64), being the provinces with the lowest concentration of Melilla Salas, Ourense and Teruel that do not exceed 45 rooms per million each.

In terms of capacity, the average density is approximately 19 seats per 1,000 inhabitants, a figure similar to the last census of 2011 and three seats below 2007.