Exhibitors give evidence to House of Lords committee

Timothy Richards, chief executive of Vue Entertainment and Phil Clapp, the chief executive of the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association will be among those to give evidence before the committee.

Evidence will also be heard from Clare Binns, head of programming at City Screen and Professor Ian Christie, advisor to Association of Independent Film Exhibitors and vice-president of Europa Cinemas.

They have been called to give evidence to the committee for their inquiry into the prospects for British film and TV. Issues to be discussed include the digitisation of cinemas and the failure by the Government to provide legislation making camcording in cinemas illegal.

Clapp says he hopes to challenge the Committee’s view that there is a limited range of films available to audiences. He said: “The message we want to put forward is that the UK cinema industry is in a good and buoyant place at the moment.”

Vue’s Richards added that will “raise the flag again” about the lack of legislation around making illegal recordings in cinemas.

He said that Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs was illegally recorded in a Vue cinema in Manchester and made available online last week. The operator was able to trace the illegal version back to the specific cinema due to watermarkings.

On the issue of the digitisation of cinemas, Clapp said: “We do not want to underplay the challenges but we are not going to make a request for public money.”

The committee is due to finish the inquiry by the end of the year.