Gibberish comes to a home of academic excellence and parades as talking about 'competition'

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24 August

The following quotations are taken from the Provisional Findings Report of the Competition Commission, dated 20 August and called Cineworld / City Screen Merger Inquiry : Completed acquisition by Cineworld Group plc of City Screen Limited


In Cambridge, Picturehouse operates a three-screen cinema. There is a nine-screen Cineworld cinema and an eight-screen Vue cinema within less than 5 minutes’ drive-time. (para. 6.77)


Yes, that's all very well - you can be outside the Arts Picturehouse in a car and, from there, drive to Vue's premises, except that you cannot park immediately outside either of them. Being able to do that journey in less than five minutes ? Well, you would have to be very lucky with two major traffic-light-controlled junctions and two pelican crossings, and then you would be outside a cinema, momentarily, on a road where you cannot even stop.

Talking, then, of '20- and 30-minute drive-time isochrones' is then sheer nonsense - I might be able to drive to some prime location in London very quickly, but, if I cannot actually benefit from being there in and with a car, I would obviously not choose to drive there. One might do better, say, to compare being able to shop at Tesco in Royston (and park there) and then, within that timescale, getting to Morrison's in the town and being able to park - notional drive-times that have no element of practicability to them are meaningless. (I say that because when The Co-operative wanted to buy Somerfield stores, they either did not, or could not, buy what became the Morrison's.)


The report is not even consistent internally about what it means by 'travel', and so the following paragraph reads :

The parties’ survey showed that 81 per cent of Picturehouse Cambridge customers had travelled 30 minutes or less to the cinema from their home. This is consistent with our own survey, which also gave a result of 81 per cent. (para. 6.78)


This does not mean what it says, because the report is fixed on the idea of driving, as the subsequent text makes clear, but driving alone, not driving plus walking, or driving plus a parking-fee plus a smaller amount of walking. These factors might make, say, someone living in Stapleford more likely to cycle than even to get behind the wheel of a car - door-to-door transport at only the cost of effort, and with no extra time or cost, but still the journey-time.


This next paragraph beggars belief - you ask the people who would stand to benefit (by buying up one of the readymade sites) how they view Cambridge, and expect them to tell you the truth about their business plans, not playing down anything :

In addition, Curzon told us that although the demographics of Cambridge were attractive, there was too much competition under the control of Cineworld and it preferred to look at areas where there were more opportunities. Odeon considered Cambridge an attractive area, but the centre of Cambridge already had three cinemas, and it was not clear that there was enough demand to support another cinema. In addition, the city centre was tight and opportunities to enter consequently limited. Odeon [snip]. It was unlikely that Odeon would be able to open a cinema in the area in the next two to three years. If an opportunity arose, likely timescales for development were the next five to ten years. We therefore considered that timely entry in the Cambridge area was unlikely. We considered that competitive constraints on the parties would be weakened following the transaction and, on balance, that other factors at play in the Cambridge area would not defeat the lessening of competition. (para. 6.84)


So they play down how they can compete to encourage you to tell Cineworld to sell one of the cinemas, and then they just buy it. No matter whether the people who frequent these cinemas would want the films that Curzon or Odeon would show - they just get the chance to take over, because that's 'competition', even if it is a disservice to the present clientele.

Still, as long as someone watches some films or other, it doesn't matter much...


Or is that approach / logic more like that phrase of cutting off your nose to spite your face ?


And this little phrase was reported, and then ignored :

The parties also told us that demand in Cambridge could support another multiplex. (para. 6.83)


Are they trying to be clever, by saying that other chains might be drawn in, or not. It just hangs in the air - if they are right, then all the more reason for someone to gobble up whatever Cineworld is compelled to sell, because they can get rid of this home of the film festival and unprofitable arthouse rubbish, and put on solid blockbusters from noon to night !


And then there was something about surveying people and what they would do in the event of some percentage price-rise : if I wanted to watch, not the latest Batman caper, but, say, Samsara (2011), or Kosmos (2010), would I find either at Cambridge Vue or Cineworld ?

Rubbish in, rubbish out, in terms of asking a meaningful question ?


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)