Covid-related venue closures and the giant rise of streaming have cost the cinema culture a significant loss in audience numbers, and now with the aftershock of the Hollywood writers’ strike, cinema needs an innovative force if it is to avoid a prolonged decline in viewership, writes Sheryl Hickey.
Future’, which took place at IBC2023.
Experts from technology innovation across the cinema content chain explored the data gathered by research analysts Omdia, and offered insights and solutions to replenish cinema visitor numbers, giving predictions on new ways to engage and entice audiences of the future.
David Hancock, Chief Analyst of OMDIA, emphasised that for cinemas, the most positive effect Covid had on cinema was: “Studios realising that cinemas create value – if you go straight to streaming, where is your money coming in? There’s no money and there’s no hype.”These and other questions around the current cinema culture landscape provided the backdrop to a longstanding partner session, ‘EDCF: Cinema Looks Forward to a Changing...
You are not signed in
Only registered users can read the rest of this article.

MPTS 2025 reveals a media industry struggling to keep pace
MPTS 2025 is the latest event to lay bare the faultlines running throughout the TV business which is being eviscerated by AI and the creator economy.

Modern MAM: Manual archives to AI-driven systems
What was once a process of physically storing film reels and manually logging footage has become an intricate dance of digital ingestion, advanced metadata tagging, and cloud-based workflows. With productions now generating thousands of hours of video per show, managing media efficiently is no longer optional; it’s a necessity.
DTG Summit: “We are living in the age of distraction”
DTG’s annual summit explored personalisation, AI, and the canny ways broadcasters have leveraged Roblox, YouTube and TikTok on their transition from transmission to streaming.

MAX-R: Interoperable tools for an immersive future
The MAX-R Pipeline initiative looked to define and demonstrate a complete workflow of tools for making, processing and delivering maximum-quality XR content in real time. James McKeown reports on the project’s evolution and legacy.

Creative Cities Convention: Concern and caution expressed by UK TV over tariff threat
Trump’s tariffs and diversity rollback hijacked the agenda at the Creative Cities Convention where creators were also prominent.