Where are film trailers shown?

In order to help promote a movie, film trailers are shown on a range of different media platforms such as in cinemas before the film starts, on television channels during the commercial breaks or on DVDs before the menu screen shows up. Trailers are made in order to help get the word across and gain recognition for the film so that people will go and watch it either in a cinema or they will purchase the DVD in order for the makers of the film to gain a profit back from sales to cover production costs. 

TV Adverts:

As most families own a TV at this point in time it would make sense to advertise a movie during the middle of a commercial break as there is a good chance that the audience will see this. One of the disadvantages of using this method is that not everyone pays attention to the adverts on television so they would miss the advertisement for the film. Certain film trailers will only be shown on specific channels that the targeted audience would watch. For example a high-profit blockbuster film would likely be shown on channels such as BBC or ITV as they have a very generic audience, and blockbuster films are usually have a universal appeal because the plot is simple to understand, and the BBC and ITV channels are the main television channels on every British TV. A children's movie might also be advertised on one of these main channels, as well as other children's TV channels. Trailers for film genres like horror or thrillers will more likely to be seen late at night so that young audiences are not disturbed by the content and because older audiences are usually at home from school or work at this time to relax and watch TV. If a film belonged to a certain company and it had its own television channel then they would likely only advertise films from that company, such as Disney. BBC advertise in a similar style to Disney as they usually only advertise programmes or films that are BBC made.

Cinema Adverts:

When film trailers first started to be made they showed the trailers at the end of the film screening, however they discovered that many people left after the movie was over so they decided to start showing trailers before the actual screening began so that people would have to watch trailers. Many people go to the cinema early in order to get a good seat so this would mean that they would sit through all of the trailers, however there are still a number of people who decide to arrive later in order to skip watching through all of the trailers. There is also the case that many people prefer to wait and watch the films on TV instead of going to see them at the cinema when they are released so they would not see the films advertised before the full feature screening.

DVD Adverts:

When someone purchases a film DVD, there will almost always be adverts before the start of the film. There are some cases where you cannot skip through these film trailers, meaning that they will have to watch all of the advertisements. In many cases these days you are given an option to skip these trailers and go straight through to the title menu. Another disadvantage of this is that people these days prefer to watch films online, whether it be pirated or through a site like Love Film or Netflix, this way they can avoid adverts altogether and they do not have to purchase a number of films individually.

Radio Adverts:

Radio adverts are not the most common way of advertising a film as you can't see any of the footage of the movie considering how radio only has sound so the audience wouldn't be able to see any of the USPs if they were the special effects, such as Avatar (2009). The advantage of this platform is that many people listen to the radio at home or whilst they are driving so they will have a good chance of hearing about the movie being advertised. Examples of films advertised this way are Nerve (2016) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016).

Online Adverts:
Other ways trailers can shown is through streaming websites such as Youtube or Vimeo, or through social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. These are good ways to advertise a film as many people use social media and can share the trailers with their friends to help spread the word around about the film. With adverts being online,the audience can choose when to watch them and how many times they want. The disadvantage of this is that they do not have to watch the trailers and can easily skip them if they do not wish to watch them. There are also people who re-upload the trailers unoficially on these sites, meaning that the original owners could potentially lose profit from a revenue stream. There is also the chance of someone posting a fan-made or fake advert for a film which would also make the company have a loss in revenue. However fan-made advertisements can also benefit the original creators, if a viewer was more intrigued by the fan-made advert than the original, they could be persuaded to go and buy the film advertised.