The Runaway Audience

Across the United States, the spread of television was uneven. There television first became available movie attendance declined most quickly. Whenever an additional broadcast channel was added in any market, the decline in movie theater attendance accelerated immediately and spread the most rapidly.⁷

While television took away a substantial portion of the audience from motion-picture theaters, it did not necessarily mean that great numbers in the American population were necessarily losing interest in seeing motion pictures. Over time it became clear that Americans still wanted to see movies but were quite satisfied to view them at home on the small screen of a television set. That was central to America's changing film culture during the 1960s. For example, when THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) was shown on ABC Television in September 1966 it drew an estimated audience of 60 million. Consistently throughout the 1960s, a national, prime-time broadcast of a feature film by a major network did exceptionally well, even though comparatively few equaled the draw of an "event" film like THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. Neither the small screen and poor sound of the average television set, nor the periodic commercial interruptions, compromised a film's entertainment value enough to prevent large audiences from watching and enjoying nearly any kind of movie on television.⁸

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