14/03/2003

Launched in November 2002, the UGC unlimited card (which, as the name implies, gives the holder free access to all the circuit’s Belgian screens for a monthly fee of Euros14.90) continues to generate controversy. The initiative so angered Belgium’s non-UGC exhibitors that the government decided to try and extend the scheme to all Belgian cinemas. However, the independent simply don’t want to know. Today’s edition of Belgian daily newspaper, "Le Soir", carries an overview of the Belgian theatrical exhibition and distribution sectors and states that "in order to attract the biggest audience possible, UGC launched a programming policy that puts it into competition with theatres that tend to focus on auteur-driven titles." The article continues: “distributors were also angered by UGC’s having unilaterally set basic ticket prices, with their cut being Euros5.03 - well below the full price of cinema tickets." Minister Charles Picqué’s plan to extend the UGC card to all cinemas also angered smaller exhibitors because, as one of them explains in the article, “we would have to employ staff to manage the scheme and that would cost exhibitors more than the revenue generated by the card.”