http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/0...

It's time for studios and the cinema industry to stop charging the same price to see any movie any day of the week, a media industry analyst said in a strongly worded research note Friday.

"Movie exhibitors are operating with the largest amount of excess capacity of any industry we could find in the free world," wrote Todd Juenger, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research. Nearly 93% of theater seats go unfilled, he said, including 99% between Monday and Thursday.

Over the years, many industry players and observers have called for "variable pricing" for movies. The basic idea is that the more popular films should cost more to see, while those that don't pack theaters would get a discount. But theater owners and studios have resisted, in large part because they are concerned about the negative perceptions that would come from some new offerings costing less to see than others.

Juenger noted that everything from airplane tickets to hotel rooms and even DVDs at Wal-Mart have some degree of variable pricing. "The only industry we could think of that is remotely similar to movies in terms of flat pricing with big spikes in utilization is fast-food," he observed."
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I can see this working. Who knows how many gems I've missed because I didn't want to pay full price for an unknown director or cast? And, best of all, a higher price for Avatar might well have kept me from wasting two hours of my life enduring that monstrosity.

--fleg