DC Films

I see the advertised showtime as queuing up for disappointing popcorn and a large Diet Coke time. By the time I've sat down with my dull salty popcorn I'll catch a couple of trailers and I'm good to go for the film.

A lot of movies are long enough as it is that avoiding adding on extra time just to watch ads is an easy decision for me to make.

If I get there while the non-trailer ads are going I just look at my phone.

I’m 100% on geefe’s side. I’m not paying to still get ads. It’s a big reason I’ve never subbed to hulu. At some point, they did introduce an ad-free tier, but by then I’d already swore them off on principle.

I don't want to watch ads before the film but I'm not going to go out of my way to time my arrival to miss them. I'll just chat to whoever I'm with while they're on.

I doubt I would pay for an ad-supported streaming tier either but it's not incomprehensible to me that other people would have different priorities.

Was she not skipping them after 15 or so seconds?

Didn't you tell her about Adblock?

Paying for cinema food and watching the adverts...I don't get some of you

I guess I'm kinda spoiled in Andorra, the movies actually start at the specified time. It's kinda weird.

I mean, they do what they have to do to stay open (and subsidise your ticket price). Ads are annoying for sure, but just get there a bit later and you'll be fine. Some chains here even have separate session and feature start times, so you know when to actually turn up.

Why not both?

Aren't Cineworld's ticket prices ridiculously cheap though? (plus they need all the money they can get)

As usual, it's not really a black and white issue, and it depends on the level of ads, the cost, what people expect and what people signed up for.

If I've paid for an ad-free service and they suddenly start sticking ads on there then I'd probably be rather annoyed. But if I've chosen a service that is free or has a lower cost due to having ads then that's what I've signed up for.

If it's a choice between ad-free cinemas and lower ticket prices, I'd almost certainly choose lower ticket prices... unless they're running a ridiculous number of ads.

It'd also depend what I'm watching. Something like Friends or Love Island or whatever doesn't really matter if it gets interrupted by ads, but something very reliant on atmosphere or tension might.

I'd be interested in things like the Netflix/Hulu reduced-price ad-supported models.

Of the 4 totally free ad-supported services I've tried recently (Plex, PlutoTV, Freevee and Tubi) the first two were basically unwatchable because the ads were too frequent and too annoying. The latter two were fine.
It's a bit different because I'm not paying, but it shows how important the level of ads can be, and also their placement and length.

A few ads before the show/movie, and ads on the pause screen are fine with me. Ads popping up every 5 minutes... nope.

Ah, maybe I'm mixing it up with Vue? (I'm out of touch with UK cinema chains.)
Isn't there one UK chain that's like 5 quid a ticket?