Cable Channels Put Movies on Regular Repeat

Theatrical movies in general are having a renaissance on television.

Yes, cable networks dream of finding the next “Duck Dynasty” or “The Walking Dead” or buying a rerun that can deliver big ratings like “The Big Bang Theory” has for TBS, but in the meantime they are hedging their bets with movies. Five years ago, 41 basic cable networks aired movies. Now about 60 do. “Movies are a limited-risk investment,” said Frances Manfredi, NBCUniversal Television’s president of distribution. Another bonus, she added, is that theatricals usually require far less promotion than an original or acquired series. Now that demand is so high, movie studios are changing how they sell movies. Instead of selling a film to one network for four years, they are splitting that “exclusive window,” giving multiple networks slices of time to run it. In 2013, theatricals averaged 2.7 million viewers, only 200,000 less than their average in 2009, despite the huge increase in availability of movies during that time not only on cable but also on online platforms, such as Amazon and Netflix.