Bricks, Mortar, and Wireless Headphones

Today, at the launch of the iPhone 7, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the phone will not have an outlet for headphones. Customers will either have to use wireless Bluetooth headphones, or else buy a special pair of headphones that is capable of plugging into the outlet for the phone’s charger.

If the wireless headphone age really is about to get underway, many unforeseen consequences are likely to accompany it in the coming years. One industry that might, perhaps, be hit very hard by wireless headphones is the movie theatre business. While on the one hand it might be the case that wireless headphones could make going to the theatre more enjoyable – you no longer have to listen to other people smack popcorn or  whisper to one another noisily – on the other hand it could lead to vastly increased competition for movie theatres, as it could allow new movie theatres to pop up in unexpected places.

Let’s quickly look at two places this competition could arise from: sports bars and brick-and-mortar retail stores.

Sports bars could be a threat to matinées. Sports bars already have lots of big screen televisions, and in some cases very big projector screens, and in many cases comfy seats as well. They also have food and drink, and operate well under capacity during the daytime. Many also have basements or back-rooms with no windows, which can be made pitch-black even in the daytime. Some may try to turn themselves basically into little movie theatres during the day.

(Sports bars could maybe also be a threat to cable tv. One reason many people have been sticking with cable tv insted of “unplugging” and just using the Internet is to watch sports. Wireless headphones could make watching sports at a sports bar a more appealing alternative than it has been up until now, however, by shutting out other noise from the bar so that fans do not have to watch the game on mute while listening to loud drunk people around them. Now if only they could do something about those filthy bar bathrooms..)

The same is true of restaurants, though they do not have as many tv’s or as big tv’s as sports bars do, and though there are many restaurants that will certainly not want people coming in to watch sports or movies. Still, it is easy to imagine some of the less fancy restaurants trying to do this to entice customers.

The big move, however, could be at brick-and-mortar stores. These stores, even for giants like Walmart, are right now under severe threat from the online retailers, led by Amazon. It may not be long before even the grocery stores are under the same threat. These stores are desperately looking for ways to get customers to come to their stores — a desperation that is only going to increase in the years ahead.

One option they may have to attract customers is to put big movie screens in their parking lots or even inside their stores. In their parking lots, these could play movies at night when the lot is mostly empty of cars, or they could become a drive-in theatre. The screens could be put inside tents that could be easy to put up and take down, in order to block out light pollution and rain, or they could be used without tents. Given that parking lots will often be empty as more people turn to online shopping, they could have lots of room to do this.

The bigger brick-and-mortar retailers could do a similar thing inside their stores as well, which would be useful when the weather is bad and would block out light pollution. At the very least, they could allow their tv departments to play movies that children could watch while their parents shop. At the most, they could basically set-up movie theatres inside their stores, making use of wireless headphones to do so. In fact, just like how they are likely to have fewer cars in their parking lots as a result of online shopping, they are also likely to have more room inside their stores, as more of their own customers buy goods from them online and then swing by the store just to pick up what they have purchased.

And maybe to watch a movie, too.

With all this in mind, I do not think I would invest in a movie theatre company stock, like CNK, right now. If on the other hand you have any ideas of why people might instead go to the theatres more in the future, I would like to hear them, so please leave a comment about it below.