Norway nears national digital roll-out 12 months early
As Norway's national digital roll out - the first in the world, including 414 screens all over the country - nears completion, the Norwegian cinema association, Film & Kino, has reported increased admissions in small- and medium-sized theatres.
According to Film & Kino Project Manager Jørgen Stensland, access to more films and less delay between the national and the local premieres are among the reasons for the improvement "but also alternative programming. In provincial Sunndal, last year's most popular film was a local production with a local cast."
Almost a year ahead of schedule, 410 screens in 185 theatres all over the country have been digitised. Oslo's Colosseum multiplex was the first theatre to be equipped with the new system, and from autumn Film & Kino's mobile cinema, the Bygdekinoen, will no longer use 35mm prints.
"The project could hardly have been realised without Norway's municipal cinema structure," added Film & Kino's Managing Director Lene Løken, who negotiated the vpf (virtual print fee) contracts with the Hollywood studios and the country's independent distributors which, with Film & Kino and theatres, will finance the investment.
The total budget for the digitisation is $66.4 million (NOK 390 million) which will be provided over a six- to eight-year period. Several cinemas have added live transmissions of sports or opera (from New York's Metropolitan, Milan's La Scala) to their repertoire, "often selling more tickets than ordinary screenings", Stensland added.
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