Statistics Canada has confirmed what those in the industry have known for some time – that 2003/04 marked the first drop in movie attendance in a decade, down 4.6% from ’02/03. Profits dove too, down almost 16%.

Those numbers – in the most recent Motion Picture Theatres Survey, an annual report from StatsCan – translate to 4.2 million fewer visits to theaters and a decline of $12 million. Until 2003/04, attendance had been going up an average of almost 5.5% every year since the early 1990s.

The report comes as no surprise. Attendance is still sluggish at North American theaters and it remains to be seen if this summer’s would-be blockbusters will buck the downward trend.

In ’03/04, only the largest theaters – those grossing more than $1 million annually – managed to turn a profit, netting an average of more than $200,000. That was still a drop of almost 17% from the previous year. Small theaters lost an average of just under $3,000 each, while the medium-sized suffered the most with an average loss of almost $20,000.

The report puts some blame on the SARS outbreaks of 2003 for bogging down attendance in Toronto and Vancouver, also noting that there were fewer big-budget, highly anticipated releases in ’03/04 than in previous years.

The industry has been debating whether the root of the problem is increased competition from the rental market, or if unpopular product is keeping the public at bay.

The attendance slump is thought to be a factor in the recent spate of theater chain sell-offs. Famous Players introduced lower prices earlier this year, in hope of boosting its numbers, shortly before it was dropped by its parent Viacom.

And yet StatsCan also found that theater chains were able to bring in nine times the average profit of independent theaters – earning an average of $168,000 per theater to the independents’ $18,000.

-www.statcan.ca