A Huge Victory for Consumer Rights

Perhaps caving to extreme pressure from both the New York City Council and the Connecticut State Legislature — two institutions on the forefront of the crusade to protect the little guy — Loew’s movie theaters have announced they will start advertising the time a movie will actually begin, allowing movie watchers to skip the commercials before the movie:

Coming soon to a movie ad near you – if not to a space-squeezed marquee – the time that the movie starts. The time that the movie really starts, not the time that the trailers and the commercials start. Or words to that effect.

Loews Cineplex Entertainment says that next month it will begin publicizing true starting times, sort of.

John McCauley, the company’s senior vice president for marketing, said the times in the company’s newspaper and Web listings would still be the times when the trailers and commercials start. But the ads will also carry a note advising that, as Mr. McCauley put it yesterday, “the feature presentation starts 10 to 15 minutes after the posted show time.”

In retrospect, I’m surprised Elliot Spitzer didn’t also avail himself of this tempting low-hanging fruit! And now on to bigger and better things about which the City Council can warn consumers — Neil LaBute, for example . . .