1944 Grand Lake Theatre Oakland CA AD

I found out that many of the SF Bay Area movie theatres did not pay for the little neighborhood info movie listings that were in the big column sections of entertainment amusement or the local theatre page on most newspapers like the SF Chronicle, SF Examiner and Oakland Tribune. They did pay semi cheap per column inch rates for display advertising with extra large photo type ads in the daily or Wednesday or Friday editions. This has changed now If you wanted to put a small ad out or flyers for a film playing at your cinema, they will charge you for ever word listed and display art. I have many press book ads from the 1950’s & 60’s that had advertising matts camera ready you could order from ‘National Screen Service’ to cut and send to the newspapers in many sizes. Now most movie theatres and the studios don’t bother to place movie ads in the newspapers. Moviegoers just go on the computer sites to tell them what is playing and with prices for reserved seats .To costly for them now to pay for advertising. They make their money now from popcorn/drink sales. When you arrive you have to sit thru a bunch of tired ads and pay hi $ prices for food or drinks. No wonder many theatres are closed these days because they don’t bother to advertise what is on their screen in print. Yes many people still especially older moviegoers read local papers and weekly entertainment free event papers to find out what is going on each week.