Everyone has a story about the annoying person with the cell phone. You’re trying to have a nice dinner or watch a movie at the theater and there’s this inconsiderate person ruining the experience for others by talking on his cell phone, as if the laws of civility don’t apply to him.

In the same manner, everyone has a story about how much they dislike commercials at the movies. Of all the types of audience captivity that people dislike, commercials at the movies is one that is nearly universally shared.

So I’m not surprised to learn about the Captive Motion Picture Audience of America.

CMPAA sounds like a group but its really an effort, or objective, to make executives at movie theaters understand that pre-movie ads alienate their customers.

Of course, executives at movie theaters have no intention of eliminating their ads, just as executives involved in other types of captive-audience platforms—TVs on gas pumps, in elevators, on trains and buses, even in restrooms—have no intention of eliminating theirs.

It’s worth asking why these media executives don’t recognize that a significant portion of consumers resent and take offense at having their involuntary-attention button pushed by being made captive to audio-video media they haven’t asked for.

But be that as it may, CMPAA has had mixed success in its effort to get theater owners to do the right thing.

It can take some satisfaction in a move, led by Loews in 2005, to start publicizing more information about the starting times of its movies. It’s safe to say that Loews’ decision wasn’t because the company suddenly questioned its tactic of force-feeding commercials to consumers in a venue that they had paid to be in; it’s more likely a class-action lawsuit against it and a flurry of bills in state legislatures had changed its thinking.

Both the lawsuit and the bills weren’t about stopping pre-movie ads but empowering consumers to decide whether or not they wanted to sit through them. To remove this albatross from around its neck, Loews started disclosing the actual start time of its movies rather than, as had been its practice, the start time of the ads.

Once the company made that move, the class-action lawsuit on behalf of movie-goers who took offense at being made captive to ads became moot and was dismissed. Same thing with the state legislative efforts.

CMPAA would still like to see pre-movie ads gone, though, and it maintains a petition for people to sign calling for their outright elimination. The petition singles out Regal Entertainment Group, which CMPAA says has a near-monopoly on first-run movies throughout the United States. 3,500 people had signed it as of this writing.

Here’s what some of them say:

“I’ve stopped going to movies because of the commercials.”

“Greed gone insane!”

“We are fed up with paying for movies only to be held ‘captive’ watching advertising. We have decided to stop going to movies until this scam is stopped.”

“Everyone hates your ads, so please stop.”

“I will stop giving them my business if they don’t stop.”

Can anything be more clear? What’s unfortunate is this kind of outrage is only set to grow as executives continue to push intrusive TV and other audio-video media into places outside the home where people can’t escape it. No matter what the content, the resentment will only build. Do we have to let this train wreck happen?

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