19 August 2007

Independent cinemas

In Finland, the market for cinemas is being monopolized. One big company, Finnkino, owns most of the cinemas. Finnkino provides us with blockbusters and Finnish films. In general, what is offered is 10 blockbusters, replaced by new ones every fourth month or so. In my beloved town, Turku, there is one independent cinema. Now the prospects look bad, as the owner of the estate has given them notice of termination of the tenancy agreement. It'll be interesting to see how this will be resolved. Will there be municipal funding for this? There should be. A more general point is that commercial market conditions should not be applied here - or at least some of these conditions do more harm than good. (And, interestingly, these conditions are not even taken seriously "in business": state authorities who handle issues related to competition have tended to turn a blind eye to Finnkino's ways of doing business)
The lack of debate worries me. Does nobody care? At least my life would be considerably impoverished if I would not have access to a decent cinema.

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