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A recent study from EY’s Quantitative Economics and Statistics group revealed that Netflix isn’t killing movie theaters, according to Variety.
The group found that constant movie theatergoers tend to stream more content than study respondents who went to the movies only one or twice per year.
The industries actually work hand in hand, with people watching just as much movies in the theater as they do online.
This contrasts the theory that Netflix and other digital entertainment companies draw the crowds away from theaters and are causing the drop in attendance.
Participants in the study who headed to theaters nine times or more in the last 12 months streamed more content than those who visited movie theaters only once or twice over the past year.
These participants racked up on average 11 hours of weekly streaming while participants who made fewer trips to the movies streamed seven hours of content.
“The message here is that there’s not a war between streaming and theatrical,” director of media and research at NATO Phil Contrino said in a statement. “People who love content are watching it across platforms and all platforms have [a] place in consumers’ minds.”
Meanwhile, participants who avoided movie theaters tended to avoid streaming content, also. Eighteen percent of them streamed movies and TV shows online for eight or more hours per week.
The researchers collected the findings from 2,500 respondents in November. Eighty percent of these people saw at least one movie in theaters this year.
The National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) commissioned the study. The association has disagreed with Netflix in the past for avoiding movie premieres in theaters.
