Pre-show advertising in cinemas

Very few cinemas sell their own screen time to national advertisers. Instead they contract with an advertising network, which aggregates audiences across many venues, sells them to brands and agencies, delivers the adverts into each cinema's playlist and pays the exhibitor — usually a share of revenue, sometimes a guaranteed amount per attendee.

Local advertising, from nearby restaurants and businesses, is often sold by the cinema itself or by the network's local sales arm, and can matter more to a small venue than the national reel.

Pre-show revenue has no film rental taken from it, which makes it valuable. The cost is time and audience patience: a long reel pushes the feature start later and is one of the most common complaints about the moviegoing experience.

A practical middle ground many cinemas now use is to publish an honest "film starts at" time alongside the session time — on the website, in the app and on the ticket. It costs nothing, and it removes the single most irritating surprise of the evening.