Movies for Adults

Slate reports:

The drop in the audience in 2005 is hardly a new phenomenon. Since the advent of television in 1948, the movie audience has declined in most years. Annual ticket sales have fallen from 4.6 billion tickets in 1948 to 1.6 billion last year, even though the U.S. population has doubled. The studios, recognizing that most of the former habitual moviegoing audience is at home watching television—and soon their iPods—create audiences for each of their movies through advertising on television, an enormously expensive—and risky—enterprise. To make it work, the studios look for a group of people that both regularly tune into TV programs on which the studios can afford to buy commercials and who can be motivated by a 30-second ad to leave the comfort of their houses to go to the multiplexes. And for better or worse, that means teenagers.

Competition for the entertainment dollar.