Take Me Out to the Ballgame... at the Cineplex

Cineplexes are boosting stagnant sales by showing more live broadcasts, the New York Times reports. From the Metropolitan Opera to the Mets, high-def feeds are luring fans for less than the price of a live concert or ball game. "We can now replicate Carnegie Hall across the country," an exec at Screenvision said.

Film audiences rose by 1% in 2007, after stagnating in 2006 and declining the previous 3 years. Cineplexes rented out auditoriums for meetings to compensate, but the advent of digital projectors and 3-D are making live broadcasts possible. "Live simulcasts of sporting events won't displace the first week of Harry Potter, but they might displace the fifth," said the CEO of Landmark Theaters. (More cineplex stories.)