It’s so very hard to be modest.
Especially when you’re continually right. Apparently, the boys out at Studio Briefing, one of my personal favorite news sources, caught up to the fact that Panasonic TVs, especially big-screen digital television sets, were selling like crack in rehab in the midst of some of the worst economic conditions in the last ten years.
Suggesting that the recession is no obstacle to home theater enthusiasts, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes consumer-electronics items under the Panasonic label, reported today (Tuesday) that its net income soared 86 percent in its first quarter, which ended on June 30. The company said that its profits hit $679 million, helped primarily by sales of big-screen digital television sets.
Sony, meanwhile, is not doing as well, but that has just as much to do with lower box-office take than anything else–there’s no big Sony releases for them this year thus far. But I differ somewhat with this analysis; I believe that the recession actually CAUSED the spark in sales.
Okay, stick with me on this one. I’m going to have to use a few assumptions, so that’s going to skew numbers just a bit. Especially in terms of movie theatre ticket prices. Here’s the rundown as I see it: Basically, every time you go to the theatre, you’re paying anywhere between six to ten bucks just for the ticket itself. Yes, there are matinee prices and individual theatre discount rates and student fares and all that. We’re talking average. Plus there’s gas to get there and the perfectly horrifying rates just for a soda, which at its current rate will be twice as expensive as gas by the end of the year if it isn’t already. Meanwhile, a high-quality plasma TV can be had for about twenty five hundred bucks at Circuit City (just checked this week’s flier!), and will last, at last report, as long as one hundred thousand hours.
So basically, considering movies average two hours, I can watch fifty thousand movies on that plasma TV, whilst to watch fifty thousand movies in the theatre would cost me upward of…brace yourself…
…BETWEEN THREE AND FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Just for the TICKETS.
Granted, you’d have to shell out roughly a hundred grand at the two bucks a pop renting movies costs, and possibly more depending on location and quantity and if you’re taking full advantage of a high-density download service in conjunction with DVDs from Netflix or Blockbuster Online, but still. Even at the hundred grand level, we’re still talking HUGE savings, and I’m not even factoring in the out-of-control gas prices.
And if you ask me, there’s nothing better for a huge plasma TV than a horror movie with plenty of plasma getting thrown around. Okay, weak pun, but it still works.
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