The number of handwritten tickets has decreased, but the phenomenon of ＂stealing box office＂ in cinemas has been repeatedly banned.
Special feature of 1905 film network "Why is there less stealing the box office now? It’s because tickets are sold online. 90% of the tickets are bought from the website, and the cinema can’t steal much. " Xiao Dianjun told us this when he was investigating the illegal phenomena such as box office evasion and concealment in cinemas in 2019, which witnessed the rapid development of cinemas in China.
Compared with the common handwritten tickets in the past, there have been fewer and fewer violations in cinemas in the past two years.
On the website of China Film Distribution and Projection Association, up to now, five cinemas have been notified of serious violations in 2019. In 2018, there were 3 batches of 14 companies; In 2017, it was 68 in 4 batches.
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New mode of "stealing box office"
Bao Hua, a cinema investor, has worked in Dadi Cinema and Orange Sky Golden Harvest for many years. In his view, at present, it is better to control the phenomenon of box office evasion in second-and third-tier cities: "Because in second-tier cities, ticket inspectors are still relatively frequent. Unless it is a fourth-tier city and a fifth-tier city, there are one or two cinemas in a small town, and it is impossible for ticket inspectors to go. At that time, it is easy to do something handwritten or steal tickets. "
But now, there is a more secretive behavior of stealing box office. The secret is hidden in the online ticketing platform, on a line of fine print after the successful ticket purchase.
Maybe many people don’t notice this line when they buy tickets: the movie ticket is provided by XXX. There are several words in the middle: Mantianxing, Fire Phoenix, Dingxin, vista and so on. In fact, Cat’s Eye and Taobao Film only provide platforms for buying movie tickets, and the real movie tickets are provided through these ticketing systems we mentioned just now.
In order to ensure the authenticity of the box office, the film bureau requires cinemas to use the designated ticket management system. The cinema ticketing system needs to have the functions of film scheduling, film ticketing, sales, report statistics, telephone voice and Internet ticketing.
The office of the National Film Industry Development Special Fund Management Committee, which is often referred to as the "special fund office", is mainly used to supervise the box office of cinemas nationwide and collect special funds for films. In order to ensure the authenticity of the box office, cinemas are required to use the designated ticketing system.
The system needs to report real-time ticket sales records and ticket statistics records to the movie ticketing data platform in real time every day. At present, there are 7 ticket management softwares certified by the special-funded office, including Guangdong Branch (Fire Phoenix), Huaxia Mantianxing, VISTA, and Yingxiongxin.
If there is a cinema, it will take advantage of the loopholes in the ticketing system and continue to carry out illegal operations such as stealing and reporting the box office. Compared with handwritten tickets, this method is more hidden and unknown to ordinary consumers.
Xiaoye works in one of the ticketing management software. On June 13th, he bought a movie ticket for the 19: 00 show in Dingzhou beyond the cinema on June 14th. After the ticket was successfully issued, he found that this movie ticket was not provided by his own ticketing software, but became another ticketing software company.
He told us that this cinema had been forcibly replaced by the ticketing system provided by his company because of illegal behavior. At present, there are no loopholes in this ticketing system, and cinemas can no longer operate illegally. But Mantianxing still provides ticket service for this cinema.
In other words, Dingzhou City secretly used the dual system to steal and conceal the box office beyond the cinema. Use one system to selectively report the box office to the special fund office, and another system to sell tickets.
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Has the county private cinema become the "hardest hit"?
During the interview, many cinema managers said that the phenomenon of private cinemas in the county town stealing and reporting the box office was more serious. Although cinemas should follow the principle of "unified brand, unified film arrangement, unified operation and unified management", many cinemas are franchised, and the relationship between cinemas and cinemas is relatively loose.
Zhou Siguang, assistant general manager of Beijing Bee Fire Film Association Culture Development Co., Ltd., said in an interview with the media that among the more than 10,000 cinemas in China, more than 6,000 cinemas are only affiliated with cinemas, and most of them are located in small cities.
Bao Hua, an investor, believes that the fourth-and fifth-tier cities have a small population base, relatively few cultural needs and less frequency of watching movies. Opening cinemas in such cities has a weak return on investment, which has led to the occurrence of box office evasion.
"The evasion of the cinema hurts the investors and distribution of the film." Liu Jia, a senior market research expert and a visiting professor at the Beijing Film Academy, said: "These theaters that can make leaks are basically personal investments. In fact, for the cinema, he wants to get quick success and get his money back as soon as possible. "
Zhang Na, the person in charge of Yibin, Sichuan, pacific studios, was particularly angry when it came to stealing and reporting the box office. In her view, although Yibin is a fourth-tier city, most studios of the Pacific Cinema are direct-cast, so the management is standardized. However, there are many privately-invested cinemas in county-level cities, "all of which are running for the box office." Because of the county level, management is even less likely to involve such a place. "
This year’s Spring Festival file has been analyzed by industry insiders, and the act of stealing and reporting the box office has lost at least 1 billion in this most important schedule of the year. A, a studio manager who did not want to be named, was involved in stealing the box office. He told us that films with big box office appeal and good reputation are prone to illegal operation. During the small holidays such as Spring Festival, Summer Holiday, National Day and New Year’s Eve, illegal operation is easy to occur.
Studio manager A told us that there are many ways for the studio to leak and report the box office: "Handwritten tickets are not recorded; No tickets will be issued for group tickets and seat locks; Double system, one system reports selectively, and the other system is used to sell tickets; The profit of the package belongs to popcorn, and the movie tickets are classified into packages and sold in the name of sales items, which are not recorded at the box office. "
As mentioned above, the studios use the dual system to steal and report the box office. If you are not a professional, the ordinary audience can’t find out the behavior of the theater stealing and reporting the box office from such tickets.
Zhang Na also mentioned some loopholes in the ticketing system: "It is very convenient for some ticketing software to have illegal operations. Someone will send you information at any time and sell software."
At present, the detailed rules for the management of cinema ticketing system (software) published by the special endowment office stipulate that cinemas can only install and use one set of cinema ticketing software products that have passed the record at the same time. At the same time, the detailed rules will "assist cinemas to install two or more sets of ticketing software;" Assisting cinemas to tamper with and forge box office data. " It is stipulated as a violation of the ticketing software vendor.
"Installing and using two or more sets of cinema ticketing software products at the same time; Changing the ticketing software and related box office data. " It is a violation of the cinema.
For these violations, the detailed rules also propose punishment methods:
1. For ticket software vendors who violate the rules, depending on the circumstances of violation, the Film Fund Office will cancel their ticket software filing qualification and disable the UsbKey hardware digital certificate.
2. In violation of the regulations, the provincial film authorities shall suspend the UsbKey hardware digital certificate of the cinema, and the suspension time shall be determined according to the violation circumstances of the cinema.
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The Significance and Limitation of the Voting Supervision Mechanism
At present, the cinema ticket supervision is handed over to Zhongda Helian Company. Zhongda Helian is registered by five companies, including China Film, Bona and Light.
In addition to the movie box office supervision of these companies, Zhongda Lianhe will also sign contracts with other distribution companies for screening supervision. Although Zhonglian has played a positive role in monitoring the box office evasion, some studio managers have put forward another idea about the existence of Zhonglian.
In the eyes of a theater manager in Shandong, the existence of the Alliance is rather embarrassing: "It is always a contradiction between companies, and it does not represent public power. If this problem is not solved, it will actually do great harm from the perspective of market economy, fairness from the perspective of fair competition and creating a fair market environment. "
Another cinema investor said that the alliance of all the cinemas is more like a contractual spirit. In order to expand its business, cinemas need to constantly absorb cinemas. "Under this mechanism, how can cinemas be particularly powerful in monitoring the box office of cinemas?" He even pointed out that when the United League cracked down on illegal activities in public, which department would supervise some corruption in ticket inspection?
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Stealing box office is not conducive to market integration.
In our investigation and interview, an investor who operates cinemas in Shandong and Sichuan at the same time said that Shandong, Southwest China and other places are high-risk places for box office evasion and other illegal acts. The person in charge of the studios in Sichuan even said that the phenomenon of box office evasion and concealment in Sichuan is still serious, but Yunnan is even worse than Sichuan. It is even difficult to build a new cinema.
Zhang Na said that there are basically two cinemas in county-level cities with a permanent population of about 100,000. This has also caused these small studios to use illegal means to become a common phenomenon: "With so much money invested, investors must also want to make a profit, not to mention profit, at least want to return to their capital, right?" He is not competitive, and his only way is to steal the box office. "
On December 11, 2018, the Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Cinema and Promoting the Prosperity and Development of the Film Market issued by the State Film Bureau once again mentioned deepening the reform of the cinema system and opening the cinema license. Professor Liu Jia said that this positive signal means that the transparency, openness and fairness of the market can be demonstrated. After new competitors enter the market, the small cinemas with worrying survival will be absorbed and merged under the action of market rules.
At present, the spread of box office evasion in Xiaoying City violates the laws of the market and is not conducive to the integration of the whole market. For the future construction adjustment of China cinemas, the transformation of a large number of non-standard cinemas has had a negative impact. Many cinema investors said that they are more willing to invest in the construction of new cinemas than to acquire small cinemas that are difficult to manage.
Therefore, the act of stealing and concealing the box office has seriously dealt a blow to the solidity of the cinema as the foundation for China to move from a movie power to a movie power. In the past 10 years, these violations have indeed been greatly reduced. In the future, further supervision of the whole industry is also needed, so that the stumbling block on the road of industry chaos is completely shattered.