Back in May, a group of New Zealand theater owners were kicking around a plan to jam cell phones in their theaters. I made light of the situation, because it's absolutely ridiculous. The Kiwis cited "cell-phone rage" as their motivation to block cell phones. It's on the verge of happening right here in America now, but the motivation is the almighty dollar.
According to a Reuters article, American theater owners are thinking of petitioning federal authorities for permission to jam cell-phone reception. The theater owners are desperately searching for some way to improve their lagging box-office numbers. This isn't the answer. There are legitimate reasons for people to receive cell-phone calls in a movie theater, critical reasons in some cases. This is another example of the motion picture industry going about their business in the wrong way. The MPAA was mentioned in the article, but shockingly they didn't blame lagging numbers on piracy, instead they're thinking about launching an ad campaign to promote movie-theater attendance. This would at least be a step in the right direction. Of course, producing a greater percentage of watchable movies would be a better move. — Brian Ward
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