Wednesday, 15 August 2012
DOHA: The film and entertainment scene has changed drastically in the country over the past five to six years, thanks to a rising population coupled with people's increasing income and an equal jump in the number of cinema halls. The number of movie-goers in the country has surged almost threefold since 2007 with the number of cinema halls also going up in a similar ratio.
There were barely a dozen movie theatres in the country in 2007 with their number multiplying to as many as 38 in 2011, figures released by the Qatar Statistics Authority (QSA) for the years 2007 through 2011 show.
There were about 550,000 cinema-goers in that year (2007) but their number crossed a record one million-mark to almost 1.2 million the very next year (in 2008) even as movie halls were only 25.
According to QSA figures, movie-goers last year totalled more than 1.59 million showing a slight increase over the 2010 figure of 1.53 million.
Figures suggest that 13 new cinema halls were opened in 2008 which saw the number of cinema-goers more than double. That was also the time the country's population had been growing rapidly due to a heavy influx of foreign workers.
And 13 more cinema halls were added in 2010 again, taking the total to a record 38 in that year. The year 2011 saw no new cinema theatre coming up.
The year 2011 was historic so to say since the number of films screened suddenly soared to a record high of 1,280 with cinema-goers totalling almost 1.6 million.
Out of the 1,280 films shown only 140, or a little more than 10 percent, were Arabic.
© The Peninsula 2012
