Why Gen Alpha Prefers the Big Screen Over Their Phones

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Fergus Navaratnam-Blair of National Research Group to discuss his surprising study revealing Generation Alpha’s love for and interest in the theatrical movie experience. They look at the most interesting data from the study, including Gen A’s interest in seeing movies with friends, their strong attention span, and their ability to put down their phones during a movie. They also dig into the most important IP and actors for the younger generation of moviegoers (02:06). Matt finishes the show with an opening weekend box office prediction for ‘The Conjuring: Last Rites’ and ‘Hamilton’ in theaters (25:13). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Fergus Navaratnam-Blair Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Danny Kelly, and it's officially fantasy football season,
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0:38.4	Today it's kids and theaters.
0:40.7	I think most people might assume that Gen Alpha, that's children under 13 or 14,
0:45.7	born after the advent of social media and raised on tablets and other devices,
0:49.9	got one of those at home.
0:51.3	I think the thinking is that they probably wouldn't be very into going
0:54.6	to a theater to watch a movie. It's probably outdated, as Ted Sarandos that Netflix has said.
1:00.6	In fact, the thinking goes, if theaters ever hoped to win this demo, they need to start catering to
1:05.6	their tastes, like allowing phones or even AI chatbots in theaters. But what if it's the exact opposite?
1:12.6	What if these kids, having grown up digitally,
1:14.8	actually crave an in-person experience?
1:17.8	What if Gen Alpha is actually the savior of movie theaters?
1:21.3	There's a new report from National Research Group that suggests exactly that.
1:25.2	A majority of Gen Alpha kids prefer theaters to watching movies at home, it says.
1:29.8	And they're the only demo where that's the case.
1:32.2	It's much more exotic and alluring to that generation than to Gen Z or Millennials,
	...

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