(a)
The latest statistics show that the number ofpeople attending cinemas is getting steadily smaller.At the same time, the number of television viewers isgrowing at almost the same rate.
Experts say that these two trends are connectedin three ways. First, over the past few decadestelevision sets have appeared in almost every home.Second, films very quickly become available onvideo, and can be shown on the TV screen. Third, itis becoming more expensive to make films, and so the prices of cinema seats are rising.
However, this does not mean the death of the movie industry. There will always be peoplewho prefer to go out to see a film. This is because no matter how good a TV film or video is, itcan never be as entertaining as a film shown on the "big screen."
(b)
Film is giving way to TV. According to an investigation made on the number of film-goersand TV-watchers in a ten-year period (1975-1985), at the end of 1985, the number of film-goers declined sharply to about 15 thousand which accounts for only some 20 percent of whatin 1975, the heyday of films. This decline, no doubt, owes to the steadily increasing number ofTV-watchers in the same decade.
This, I think, indicates the changing pace in our society. Nowadays, people prefer TV to filmlargely because they have less chance than their older generation to spend two or three hoursin a cinema; they prefer a kind of entertainment which is freer, less time-consuming and thusmore efficient. TV just meets their need. This is at least partly if not wholly the reason thatattributes to the boom of TV in our generation.
Nevertheless, there are still a number of film-fans nowadays. They claim that as a classicalart, film is far more enjoyable than TV. Some of them also want to recall the "true-life" whichexisted in the "good-past". All in all, film is still a charming kind of art as it used to be.
