Up to 80% of box office receipts already go to the UAIS

Despite the fact that out of approximately 7 thousand film exhibitors existing in Russia, only 2.3 thousand have connected to the state electronic film ticket system, its participants already provide approximately three-quarters of the country’s real box office receipts, as follows from the January distribution results. Almost all the largest cinema chains report on tickets sold; other cinemas are not afraid of fines reaching 800 thousand rubles: sanctions are practically not applied to them.

As of January 17, 2,279 film demonstrators were registered in the unified federal automated information system for information on film screenings in cinema halls (UAIS), as follows from the information on the website of the main information and computing center of the Ministry of Culture, operator of the UAIS. Last January, Kommersant reported then, the number of participants registered in the system reached 1,969, that is, their number increased by almost 16% over the year. For comparison: in 2012 the increase was only about 6%.

The system for recording tickets sold was created in 2010 on behalf of Vladimir Putin in response to complaints from Russian film producers about cinemas withholding part of their sales. It is believed that there are only about 7 thousand film demonstrators in Russia, including, for example, rural film installations, although there is no exact data on their number. The number of modern cinemas alone at the end of 2013, according to Nevafilm Research, should have reached 1075. According to the Russian government decree on the UAIS, cinemas are required to transmit data to the system at least once an hour. But, for example, according to data published on the UAIS website on January 17, on that day only 655 out of 2,279 registered participants transmitted information. Among them are the largest cinema chains "Cinema Park", "Formula Kino", "Karo Film", "Kinomax" and others. In total, since the beginning of 2014, data has been received from only 877 demonstrators. However, this is already significantly more than a year earlier, when 286 film exhibitors regularly provided information about tickets.

Cinemas began to cooperate more actively with the UAIS last February, when amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses came into force, tightening liability for withholding information. Until February 12, 2013, violators could only face a fine of 300-500 rubles. for officials and 3-5 thousand rubles. for legal entities, while the cost of the equipment necessary to connect to the UAIS is estimated at at least 100 thousand rubles. But according to the new standards, cinemas that fail to report tickets sold once can be punished with a fine of 100-400 thousand rubles, and those who commit a repeated violation - from 400 thousand to 800 thousand rubles. However, Kommersant’s interlocutors at the film market have not yet heard about successful cases of applying sanctions to cinemas that have not connected to the UAIS, although they know that the Ministry of Culture sends letters to demonstrators about the need to connect to the system. The ministry's press service did not respond to Kommersant's request on Friday.

If a year earlier only about half of the actual box office receipts went through the UAIS, now this share is already about three quarters, as follows from the results of the current film distribution. For example, the UAIS estimates the box office of the film “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” by January 12 at 1.151 billion rubles, and the “Film Distributor’s Bulletin,” which receives information, among other things, directly from distributors, at 1.437 billion rubles. For the five highest-grossing films of the beginning of January, the UAIS takes into account 74-80% of the total receipts. A more accurate share may be slightly higher, since distributors report fees throughout the CIS, except for Ukraine, in which Russia directly accounts for, as a rule, only about 95%. Film Distributor's Bulletin itself last year began actively using the UAIS to record box office receipts in cases where individual distributors do not provide data on film rentals, says Andrei Bely, head of the publication's analytics department. “These are mostly limited releases, but over the entire year there are more than fifty of them, which gives a fairly significant amount,” he explains. But in its current form, the UAIS is unlikely to be able to cover 100% of the Russian film market, says Nevafilm CEO Oleg Berezin. “As long as distributors are not interested in the full functioning of the system, even police measures will not help,” he is sure.

Pavel Belavin

Cinemas issued e-tickets