{"id":538841,"date":"2024-05-29T17:56:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T15:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=538841"},"modified":"2024-05-29T17:58:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T15:58:49","slug":"ster-kinekor-staying-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/538841-ster-kinekor-staying-alive.html","title":{"rendered":"Ster-Kinekor staying alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ster-Kinekor CEO Mark Sardi believes cinema has a bright future in South Africa despite headwinds like\u00a0the popularity of streaming services, load-shedding, and the effect of the Hollywood actor’s strike.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with 702, Sardi explained that load-shedding impacts Ster-Kinerkor’s operations and can also disincentivise South Africans from visiting movie theatres.<\/p>\n

“Last year, despite miraculous periods of no load-shedding, we probably had the most intense period of load-shedding between April and September of last year, and that impacts consumer behaviour,” said Sardi.<\/p>\n

“If you got onto the drug of watching a streaming service at home, and you’re worried about travelling through traffic lights that don’t work, to a cinema that may, or may not be on, it does become a bit of a disincentive to go,” he added<\/p>\n

“I think with the future looking a bit brighter, I think there is still a lot of work that we can do, but there’s still a very bright future for cinema.”<\/p>\n

Sardi said the Hollywood actors’ strike had resulted in a significant gap in Ster-Kinekor’s content.<\/p>\n

“It’s like the factory stops, and you don’t have the movies to show,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So we’ve got a gap of around six to eight months where all the good stuff that was supposed to drop between January and September, and they have now been kicked out a bit longer.”<\/p>\n

Some commentators have also suggested that the cinema chain exited business rescue prematurely, and Sardi acknowledged that some aspects of the business should have been evaluated more closely.<\/p>\n

“What business rescue does, is it allows you to reset your cost base. If you think about the way a cinema is configured, a big chunk of your cost base goes to paying film rental,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You pay about half about whatever you take in ticket prices to the great and the good of Los Angeles.”<\/p>\n

\"\"

Barbie and Oppenheimer provided a big boost<\/a><\/strong> for movie theatre chains in South Africa in 2023<\/p><\/div>\n

However, he noted that Ster-Kinekor would have been wise to look at its head office costs more closely while in business rescue.<\/p>\n

Ster-Kinekor entered voluntary business rescue proceedings in January 2021. It exited business rescue in November 2022.<\/p>\n

However, it recently announced plans to slash a large portion of its workforce<\/a> and shutter several cinemas nationwide.<\/p>\n

It noted that factors like the challenging economic environment in South Africa, load-shedding, and the Hollywood strikes had led to significantly lower attendance.<\/p>\n

“As these are forces largely out of the business’s control and the financial impact is likely to endure for some time, Ster-Kinekor Theatres has had to review its cost structure to ensure the continued survival and sustainability of its business,” the company said.<\/p>\n

On 13 February 2024, it issued affected staff with section 189(3) notices. It plans to retrench 236 of its 728 employees.<\/p>\n

Affected positions include those in the CEO’s office, marketing, sales, human capital, business operations, content, finance, head office, regional operations, and information technology.<\/p>\n

It also revealed plans to close up to nine cinemas in South Africa’s most populous provinces.<\/p>\n

In the Western Cape, only Bayside is set to close. In Gauteng, it will close Cedar Square, Maponya, Matlosana, Southgate, and the iconic Sterland.<\/p>\n

Ster-Kinekor aims to close its Boardwalk and Shelly Beach cinemas in KwaZulu-Natal, and Mimosa in the Free State.<\/p>\n

It is also reviewing plans to close another eight cinemas, including Secunda, Wonderpark, Bedfordview, Cradlestone, Mooi River, N1 City, Rosebank Nouveau, and Rustenburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ster-Kinekor CEO Mark Sardi believes cinema has a bright future in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":510784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[39088,61855,35,8487,95003,2054,32140,1069],"class_list":["post-538841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-amazon-prime-video","tag-disney-plus","tag-headline","tag-load-shedding","tag-mark-sardi","tag-netflix","tag-showmax","tag-ster-kinekor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538983,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538841\/revisions\/538983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}