In emerging economies, where real estate is expensive and space is limited, there has been a boom in multiplex movie theatre construction fuelled by the conviction that small screens with many show times will increase ticket sales.
But new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has found that the strategy doesn't always work.
The study by Chicago Booth Assistant Professor of Marketing Anita Rao and Stanford University Professor Wesley R Hartmann, found that movie house owners could benefit from considering the demographics of local audiences.
The study found that overall, adding one more show time has a greater impact on boosting ticket sales than increasing screen size.
But, when researchers broke down the data by demographics, they discovered urban markets with a large percentage of highly educated consumers showed a preference for wider screens while other regions favoured a greater variety of show times.
The researchers conducted the study in the densely populated cities of India where recent economic growth has led to a boom in cinema construction, particularly of multiplexes showing the same film on several small screens.
Digital technology reduces the costs of additional screenings for a given movie because a digital copy of a movie can run on multiple screens at the same time, the study said.
While additional shows are generally worth the screen-size tradeoffs, theatre owners need to be aware of the exceptions to maximise ticket sales, researchers said.
"The study has implications for theatre chain owners expanding into international markets," said Rao.
Using demographic data to isolate which markets prefer the quality of a bigger screen to the convenience of more show times can help marketers attract more customers and sell more tickets, researchers said.