A Connecticut lawmaker wants to force movie theaters to list when previews start and when the actual movie starts in show listings, so patrons won’t be “forced” to sit through previews. Tyler Cowen has explained how movie previews and pre-movie commercials promote efficiency:

You can come early, and sit through the ads, and get a better seat. Latecomers miss the ads but have to sit behind a tall person or scrunch up their necks in the front row. In quality-adjusted terms, the theater offers different prices, depending on whether you are willing to endure the ads, and how good a seat you want. This, of course, is price discrimination, which as we know usually increases output. If only the television networks could be so clever.

I think the title of this post will be our running title for overeager state and local lawmakers. Please do keep sending in examples.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2005 at 8:00 am by Radley Balko and is filed under There Oughtta Be a Law, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.