Movie Theatres and Barriers of Attendance: An Exploratory Study of the Spanish Cinemagoers’ Segments

The sharp decrease of cinema attendance and the emergence of new ways of watching movies invites to a deeper insight into the behaviour of films’ consumers. We analyse the Spanish filmgoers with a special focus on the type of movie theatre and the barriers of cinema attendance. The exploratory latent class methodology suggests four segments of film goers: the commercial cinema audience; the elitist film goers who prefer movie theatres and films in original version (V.O. art film audience.); the omnivore cinemagoers, who prefer both multiplexes in the centre of the city and movie theatres; and the film goers who prefer films in V.O. in multiplexes (V.O. multiplex audience). Findings on probabilistic patterns of film consumption barriers and socioeconomic covariates are consistent with the existing research evidence on film audiences.