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Digital Cinema Destinations may be eyeing acquisition of Clearview
posted by
Michael Zoldessy
on
November 13, 2012 at 7:46 am
Bud Mayo at Digital Cinema is interested in purchasing the mainly suburban Northeast chain, Clearview Cinemas. He actually founded the chain in 1994 before selling it to Cablevision five years later. He’s now looking to expand his brand and with only ¼ of the screens converted to digital, Cablevision has been looking for a buyer.
Read more at Bloomberg.com.
Comments (2)
Mayo is an pioneer in the arena of digital exhibition and I like Digiplex’s commitment to alternative content and independent film. More screens more ways to leverage this material could make it work in a low risk way. Clearview (mostly do to a lack of digital screens) really didn’t leverage the IFC connection enough. I don’t think you can show an indie film 6 times a day for a week – but a new indie, foreign film or doc at 8PM every wednesday – that could work if you cultivate an audience for it.
Digiplex has the chance to do that (they run the DigiNext project) and perhaps expand that mission out by market and even multiplex. From what I’ve read is they seem to get it and expanding screen count (although I hope they make some major changes at Clearview – apart from the popcorn, Clearivew has good popcorn) – a real commitment to interesting alternative programing could be great and Mayo and team get this concept for sure. Worth noting is Clearview serves some diverse markets – and it would be great to see more diversity reflected in the form of weekly screenings of non-Hollywood content tailored to a specific audience at a specific plex, the possibilities are endless especially for smaller high quality indies with very limited distribution.
I agree john. The bad part is that if clearview is sold, no free movie tuesdays for optimum customers.