View Full Version : Movies repeated too often
Hi,
I've noticed recently that movies are repeating far too often. Yesterday (25/01/09) we watched Zoom on M-Net and when that was over, Zoom started on MM2. What's up with that?
It's happened with other movies as well, and sometimes they even run at the same time!
My wife and I love to watch movies, but if the same movie is aired around the same time, we have one less choice of movie to watch.
Please don't show the same movie twice on the same day! As it is we've had to put up with watching series on M-Net Movies.
I totally agree, its been going on for the last few months, I am sure there is a big collection of movies to chose from, but MC choses to play the same movies, over and over.
Hi Mahen
Since this is your first post I assume that you are new to forum. Please take some time to browse through the archive. The "Repeats" subject has been discussed at length on this forum.
There are a number different opinions on the matter and a number of reasons why movies are repeated and scheduled the way they are.
Regards
Editor
I totally agree, its been going on for the last few months, I am sure there is a big collection of movies to chose from, but MC choses to play the same movies, over and over.
thami_ct, please refer to my comment above.
To add to that, movies are licensed for a given period of time by a channel, the film may only be broadcast X number of times over Y number of months. Once that license expires it has to be re licensed. A film is not something that get's put in a library and shown again and again as the channel see's fit. Thus there is not an endless supply of films on tap for M-Net.
Repeats are an essential part of any pay TV operation. They are not unique to M-Net.
Regards
Editor
Hi MC Byron,
I have read through the "repeats" issue in the other threads, but I believe my topic is slightly different
My point is that DSTV airs the same movie at the same time on different channels. This defeats the pupose of having multiple movie channels!
I agree that movies should be repeated, I would miss half the movies on DSTV if they weren't. But the scheduling should be done a bit more intelligently. If an automatic system is used, it should be easy to adjust the system to prevent the same movie at the same time (or even on the same day).
Please don't show the same movie twice on the same day.
Hi Mahen
I will point out your concerns to the scheduling team. If the same movie is on at the same time on two different channels it is a rare occurrence (only in the case of M-Net and M-Net HD).
Where are you located and do you have access to the MNet Africa channel? This channel sometimes screens movies at the same time as M-Net.
Regards
Editor
Hi,
I live in SA. I've noticed that M-Net will show a movie and it will then play either on MM1 or MM2 either at the same time, immediately after or sometime later (or earlier) that day.
It's starting to occur more frequently, so the problem should be addressed.
I think it shouldn't be too difficult to find these "repeats" and swap that movie with one from the next day (or next week), while still maintaining the constraint of one movie per day on all three channels.
Thanks,
Mahen
thami_ct, please refer to my comment above.
To add to that, movies are licensed for a given period of time by a channel, the film may only be broadcast X number of times over Y number of months. Once that license expires it has to be re licensed. A film is not something that get's put in a library and shown again and again as the channel see's fit. Thus there is not an endless supply of films on tap for M-Net.
Repeats are an essential part of any pay TV operation. They are not unique to M-Net.
Regards
Editor
Thanks I did not about the licensing, I thought you would have a library, thanks for the info
To add to that, movies are licensed for a given period of time by a channel, the film may only be broadcast X number of times over Y number of months. Once that license expires it has to be re licensed. A film is not something that get's put in a library and shown again and again as the channel see's fit. Thus there is not an endless supply of films on tap for M-Net.
Repeats are an essential part of any pay TV operation. They are not unique to M-Net.
Time for me to resurrect and update a post I made in the old forum (a short time before they cutover to the new forum, once again showing my unerring sense of great timing. :) )
According to...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_in_film
...about 204 films were released in 2007. I'm assuming that M-Net is legally able to license all of these movies for showing on MM1. Let's also generously assume that there is an equal number of other, non-listed, non-Hollywood films, giving us 408 films that could potentially be bought by M-Net to show on MM1. Let's also assume each of these films is 100 minutes long, giving us 680 new hours of movie goodness per year.
Now, by my calculations, MM1 airs for 8760 hours per year.
Let's assume they show all those films in 2008, and don't repeat them after that.
That takes care of 7.76% of MM1's airtime.
What are they meant to do with the other 8080 hours (92%) in the year? Should MM1 just show a black screen for those 336 days?
If all they do is show movies back-to-back, with none of those 'Hollywood fillers', then they could fill up a years worth of airtime by repeating each movie 12 times throughout the year.
But wait! Let's look at 2008? Surely there's more?
According to...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_in_film
...there were 284 films released in 2008. (I used Excel to count the table lines; if I'm off by a bit, please accept my apologies.)
Again, let's generously assume there's an equal number of other, unknown movies that M-Net is able to find as well, giving us about 947 hours of movies to show, at an average of 100 minutes per movie.
Once again, that just about covers 10.8% of the airtime of MM1 in 2009 (I'm assuming here that MM1 is only going to show movies from the previous year so that it's all 'fresh' and 'new', and they wouldn't want to 'repeat' movies from 2007 :) ). And if movies from 2008 are the only thing they show on MM1, then that makes for just under 10 repeats of each movie throughout the year. And that assumes that M-Net is allowed to license the movie for the whole 12 months of 2009.
That's also assuming they don't put any of the films on M-Net as well, because then: god forbid, they'd be repeating stuff.
The bottom line is that the output of Hollywood and film-makers around the world doesn't come anywhere close to filling up one 24-hour movie channel.
Movie repeats happen because there simply isn't enough movie content produced each year.
mmm... interesting calculations.
But let's extend them a bit...
If you look at the guide you'll find that MM1 shows about 12 movies per day excluding fillers, adds etc. Giving us ~4380 movies per year.
Then also lose the assumption that old films are stripped since they are not. Let's go back 3 years, giving us a total of 284*2*3 = 2272 movies = 1704 movies for the last three years.
If they show each movie 3 times, we get 5112 movies :)
Plenty of space to ensure that you don't show the same movie twice on the same day.
Of course I meant:
Then also lose the assumption that old films are stripped since they are not. Let's go back 3 years, giving us a total of 284*2*3 = 1704 movies for the last three years. Here the 284 is from Clickers post (and *2 for the non-hollywood ones)
Plenty of space to ensure that you don't show the same movie twice on the same day on any of the movie channels.
you look at the guide you'll find that MM1 shows about 12 movies per day excluding fillers, adds etc. Giving us ~4380 movies per year.
OK, so you're assuming 120 minutes per movie, instead of 100.
Then also lose the assumption that old films are stripped since they are not. Let's go back 3 years, giving us a total of 284*2*3 = 2272 movies = 1704 movies for the last three years.
Excellent - someone else who isn't afraid of a little calculation or two! :)
Good idea on the old movies. So, say, 2009 would show movies from 2008, 2007 and 2006? That would give a stable of, yes, 1704 movies with a total of 3408 hours.
If they show each movie 3 times, we get 5112 movies
Of this 3408 hours, one third of that (1136 hours) would be 'new' content (from 2008) and two thirds would be 'repeat' content (2272 hours), from 2007 and 2006.
(I call it 'repeat' content because of the sliding 3-year window you've proposed. i.e. by the time 2011 came round, your 1136 hours of movies that were new on MM1 in 2008 would have already been shown for 2 years running...)
Assuming the content is spread evenly, each day would then contain just over 3 hours of new content (i.e. a movie and a half). The rest of the day (just under 21 hours) would contain repeats. This means that 12.9% of the day is new stuff, while the rest of the day is repeats.
That's taking into account your considerations of:
- 2 hours per movie
- that there are at least 284 titles for 2007 and 2006
...and my assumption that:
- there is 'hidden'/non-listed content that M-Net can get hold of to bump up the amount of content to air. I suspect that assumption of mine is... well... naive and generous, and if it's a false assumption, the percentage of new stuff would halve, of course. :)
So again: that's a very small percentage of new stuff per day, even if you show stuff made in the last 3 years.
Plenty of space to ensure that you don't show the same movie twice on the same day.
Yes - that wasn't my point. I was responding to MC Byron's assertion:
Thus there is not an endless supply of films on tap for M-Net.
Repeats are an essential part of any pay TV operation.
The only reason I can imagine that MM1 shows the same movie twice on the same day, is to cater for subscribers who do not have PVRs, or subscribers who are already using their (SD) PVRs or VCRs to record something else at that time.
According to...
This site (http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/index2008.php) indicates that 1061 movies were released in 2008. Time to do a few more calculations.
This site (http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/index2008.php) indicates that 1061 movies were released in 2008.
Excellent! Thanks, Simon. I was wondering if there was a better reference. Now I can be more confident in excluding the idea of 'hidden'/unlisted content.
I'm looking at that site, and I see a lot of foreign films:
e.g.
March, 19 La misma luna Weinstein Co. - $12,590,147 $22,708,800
March, 19 Questa notte è ancora nostra - - $2,403,049
March, 20 Pidtermyai huajai wawoon - - $1,200,000
March, 20 Colpo d'occhio
I count 73 titles in January, of which 27 appear to be foreign language films. While I do see a smattering of these on MM1, with English subtitles, I wonder if the average M-Net viewer would like it if the movie output on MM1 was increased, but only by adding foreign-language films.
So if 36% of the 1061 titles on that page are foreign language (I really should import it into Excel and count properly, though), I get 668 possible films for licensing and broadcast.
Taking the initial scenario, but with 668 films = 1336 hours of content. Mahen's 2-hours per movie makes more sense. :)
1336 hours still leaves 7424 hours of blank airtime on MM1 if they show each movie only once, and satisfy the people who don't want repeats.
Or, if they rotate them all to fill the year: each movie shows ~6.5 times throughout the year.
Or, to use mahen's idea of a 3-year window: 4008 hours, which means each movie will show ~2.2 times per year (and I know I'd like more opportunities than that to catch it). And also in this case: eventually only one third of that 4008 hours will be new content, filling about 3.6 hours per day. The other ~20.4 hours will be filled with repeated content.
These are good calculations from Clicker, I hope Multi Choice is keeping an eye on these comments, just to see what ppl's thoughts are.
My freinds that are on premium are all comtemplating whether or not to downgrade to compact and most of them, have a problem with mnet movie channels, they feel that in terms of series, they can always wait for them to play on mnet series.
I think the biggest issue is how this repeating is done, you cannot repeat a movie every weekend, that is the time ppl are off work, I think a rule to those scheduling is to only repeat a movie on a weekend once a month, unless the movie premiered in that month.
Once a movie has been repeated on a weekend day, it will only be repeated during the week, it may be repeated on weekend day in the next coming months.
Sometimes, you are sitting with freinds who have no DSTV and struggling find a good movie to watch and this does not help DSTV's image.
I am not writting to attack you, I am simply writting to advice and help you be better, I love so much of what DSTV offers, but I do think a lot more of mm1 and mm2 can be improved. Thanks.
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