Reel worries for small cinemas as the digital age takes the best seat

''The film distributors are more interested in DVDs these days'' ... Ron and Diane Bayley outside their cinema, Mount Vic Flicks, which they have owned for 25 years. Photo: Adam Hollingworth

Alexandra Smith, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

FOR 25 years, Ron Bayley has screened films in his much-loved small cinema in the Blue Mountains.

But retirement is nearing and Mr Bayley fears it may be time to sell up before the digital revolution pushes him out.

Mr Bayley's Mount Vic Flicks, in Mount Victoria, is one of hundreds of independent cinemas across the country that will need to phase out the old 35 millimetre film projectors to make way for digital technology in the next few years.

''This is going to be tough for country cinemas because most won't be able to afford to go digital,'' Mr Bayley, 67, said.

''I think this is going to wipe out in one fell swoop the entire lot of country cinemas.''

The vice-president of the Independent Cinemas Association of Australia, Benjamin Zeccola, is far more optimistic.

Mr Zeccola said the association was very close to striking a deal with the major studios in the US by which they would pay independent cinemas a subsidy, known as a virtual print fee, to help cover the costs of the transition to digital.

The fee would be paid to cinemas from the savings the studios make from lower freight costs and greatly reduced production costs, Mr Zeccola said. The major cinema chains have already negotiated a similar fee.

''We don't want to see a single screen close,'' Mr Zeccola, who is also the executive director of Palace Cinemas, said.

He had no doubt that without such a fee, independent cinemas would struggle to survive.

''But we are pretty confident that it [the fee] will be up and running by April,'' Mr Zeccola said.

The transition to digital would benefit the studios because it would cut their costs dramatically but it would also be better cinematically.

''Digital is definitely higher quality and looks exactly as the filmmaker intended,'' he said.

But for Mr Bayley and his wife, Diane, using their retirement savings for new technology is not a risk worth taking.

''The film distributors are more interested in DVDs these days … Look at what they did with Red Dog. They released that on DVD just before Christmas,'' Mr Bayley said.

''They are killing the goose that laid the golden egg … If we find someone to buy it [the cinema] we will probably sell.''