Vue cinema boss: I don't see streaming as the competition

Tim Richards appeared on the BBC's Big Boss Interview podcast

The boss of one of the UK's biggest cinema chains says he does not see streaming services and home entertainment as competition.

Tim Richards, the founder and chief executive of Vue International, says film studios tried to "circumvent" cinemas during the pandemic but lost "hundreds of millions of dollars" as a result.

"I think the studios certainly learned that we are in one small ecosystem, we all need each other," he told the BBC's Big Boss Interview podcast.

Rival cinema chains have a constructive relationship too, he says: "We are fairly open in terms of trading best practices. We want to have a message that cinemas are a great place to have a good time."

Richards spoke of the turbulence of the last five years for the film industry.

Vue went from having its best year ever in 2019, to being "effectively closed for almost two years" during the Covid-19 pandemic, to grappling with actors' and writers' strikes which shut down production for nearly another year.

While Richards was trying to figure out how to prevent Vue from going under, or from having to lay off any of its staff, streaming services like Netflix saw their subscriber numbers explode.

"I had a singular focus: save the company and save all of our 10,000 employees," he says.

"When you have a mission like that, failure is not really an option, because the consequences are too high."

Even as cinemas began to re-open, industry figures questioned whether the model of film release had changed for good. Films like Marvel's Black Widow saw minimal theatrical runs as streaming platforms tried to push their original productions.

More recently, titles like K-Pop Demon Hunters and The Thursday Murder Club are playing for just a few weeks in cinemas, despite proving to be hugely popular.

But Richards is unfazed. Vue returned to pre-pandemic trading levels this year and is expecting next summer to be the company's biggest ever.

He is emphatic that there will always be an appetite for the big screen: "During the pandemic, there was an increase with subscription services because people had no choice...But that has not continued."

"I have never looked at what happens in the home as being competition...our biggest, most frequent customers are Netflix subscribers or Disney Plus subscribers. People who love movies love movies in all formats."

The Hollywood strikes, too, he says, were a supply issue, not a demand one. "We've never had a demand issue."

Richards clearly knows the ecosystem of films inside out. Before founding Vue (then Spean Bridge Cinemas) in 1999, he was a senior executive at Warner Brothers, operating the studio's own cinema chain, Warner Village. Spean Bridge bought Warner Village's 36 cinemas in 2003, and the Vue brand was born.

"The headline in the business section of the Times was: 'Unknown Bit Player Buys Warner Brothers,'" he recalls with a laugh.

Entertainment industry squeezed

Due to cost-of-living pressures persisting, many parts of the entertainment industry are seeing revenue slow down as people cut back on discretionary spending.

Added to this are rising operational costs: an increase in the minimum wage and higher employer national insurance contributions.

"We have done our very, very best to not pass on those costs to our customers," Richards said. "And we haven't. And we've taken a small hit as a consequence, but we're hoping that the volume which we've seen as a consequence will follow it."

Still, he says, the entertainment industry has been "squeezed...and kind of attacked in some instances".

Government decisions have "hurt the people they're trying to help", in his view.

What's the industry's message ahead of the upcoming budget? "Please don't touch [us] again."

And while Richards doesn't believe that streamers are poaching his customers, he says he does worry about "somebody turning right and going to a theme park or a football game or something else".

But it's not a case of teenagers and young adults sitting at home instead of going out: "They're a lot more social than previous generations, and that has shown in our attendance with a lot of our movies."

And what is his own favourite movie?

He responds diplomatically: "I see a lot - a lot - of movies every week.

"But I look at a movie like One Battle After Another. And when I see a movie like that, I have hope for the future because it's such an incredible movie. Original IP, original story, incredibly well done."