MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group

DISUSED former cinema buildings lie scattered around the older parts of many of our town and city centres.

In the suburbs, too, there are still some to be found, surviving against the odds stacked against them by a combination of newer facilities, home video technology and complex film distribution deals designed to protect the big studio interests.

It is an interesting part of the vast and varied entertainment sector.

And, based on latest figures from the UK Film Council, it is holding its own against intense competition for our leisure time.

In the US, movie-going capital of the world, the 2010 total box office is down slightly. On this side of the Atlantic, though, it rose 2% – a rise that sees takings calculated in the all-important US dollar climb to an impressive $1.718bn.

This strong performance, together with other news from the sector, indicates a number of things.

Firstly, we like going to the cinema. Operators and owners have invested heavily to make this a more enjoyable experience.

It’s no real surprise so many of those old cinema buildings are disused. Fit for purpose may not be the phrase tripping off the tongue after an evening sat on dodgy seats with your knees under your chin and an irritating, hissing, crackling sound system out of sync with a grainy out-of-focus projection onto a small and grubby screen. The council’s figures also suggest the film distribution companies are on top of their game in terms of their timings and, for the big ticket productions at least, very much on top of the marketing game.

Nothing short of saturation coverage will suffice if a modern-day release really is to be a blockbuster.

And this is an area where old techniques and technology meets new.

Major films have dedicated websites. Some are profiled through smartphone applications and all are supported by publicists and marketing experts seeking deals with every imaginable consumer product from breakfast cereal to shampoo.

Of course, all that is at the end of the production process. Raising the budgets to make these huge films is a skill of its own – increasingly exploiting new commercial opportunities such as the revenue rake off from product placement.

It’s an impressive performance from the sector once under threat from new technology.

The studios have embraced the challenge and made the most of new opportunities.