III. CINEMA GOING HABITS

In the inquiry made in March 1946 those informants who went to the cinema at all frequently, that is to say once a month or more often, were asked a further question about their cinema going habits. The results given in this section apply only to this group of cinema goers who form rather more than half of the adult population.

Informants in this group were asked to place themselves in one of four categories as regards their cinema going habits. The categories are described in the table below.

Groups (1) and (2) include those who go to the cinema regularly whatever films are being shown. Group (1) are people who generally go to the same cinema and their habits are thus not affected at all by the film being shown, and group (2) consists of people who exercise some choice amongst the films being shown in their areas but go to one cinema or another at regular intervals whatever films may be showing.

These groups together include about 70% of frequent cinema goers and rather more than a third of the adult population.

Groups (3) and (4) which account together for about 30% of frequent cinema goers consist of people who do not go to the cinema regularly but go when there is a film on that they would like to see.

Groups (1) and (3) cover people who normally go to one cinema only, and they account for a third of frequent cinema goers, the remaining two thirds going to different cinemas on different occasions.

Analysis of these answers by sex shows no statistically significant difference in the habits of men and women. There are however some interesting differences between age groups.

It is clear that more of the younger than of the older people go to the cinema regularly choosing which of the cinemas available they will go to according to the films that are showing. Older people more frequently stick to the same cinema and more of them do not go regularly but only go when they want to see the films that are on. In other words younger people tend to make sure of getting some entertainment regularly, exercising choice within a limited field, and older people tend to forego entertainment unless it is of type they require. There is however also a substantial proportion in all groups, ranging from 19% of frequent cinema goers in the youngest group up to 31% in the oldest, that go to the same cinema regularly exercising no choice whatsoever.

Analysis by economic group showed that a relatively high proportion of cinema goers in the higher economic group, 34%, only go to a cinema when they want to see a particular film (Group (4)). Otherwise there are no important differences between the economic groups.

The results of analysing the same information by occupation are shown in Table 12 below.

There were not enough frequent cinema goers in the retired and unoccupied group for separate results to be given.

The number of frequent cinema goers in the managerial and professional group on which these percentages are based is very small, but the relatively high proportion of this group that only go to the cinema when there is a film on that they particularly want to see (Group (4)) shows a statistically significant difference from other groups. Clerical and distributive workers and factory operatives show relatively high and housewives show relatively low proportions going to the cinema regularly whilst choosing which cinema to go to according to the films being shown. 80% of frequent cinema goers who are factory operatives make a point of going to the cinema regularly (Groups (1) and (2)), and this is a high proportion in comparison with other groups.

CHILDREN

The mothers interviewed were asked whether they generally knew what films their children were going to see before they let them go to the cinema or whether they left it to the children to see whatever films they liked.

51% of the mothers said that they generally knew what films the children were going to, and 16% said they left it to the children. A further 5% said that they knew with some of their children but not with others, and the children of the remaining 28% did not go to the cinema.

Thus the majority of mothers do know what films their children will see before letting them go to the cinema.

There was some difference between economic groups in this respect.

Mothers in the lower economic groups more frequently leave the children free to see whatever films they like than those in the higher group. But in higher economic groups the greater proportion know what films the children are going to see before letting them go to the cinema.