U.K. exhibs want 17-week window

February 08, 2007 Tim Richards, CEO of the U.K.'s third-largest exhibitor, Vue Entertainment, said: "Based on what's happened in the past few weeks, we have, regretfully, had to draw a line in the sand at a calendar four months, or 17 weeks." While there are no window agreements in the U.K. between content providers and exhibitors, this is the first clear public statement by a major theater chain that it will not tolerate further shrinking of release windows. But, having identified collapsing release windows and piracy as the two major threats to their business, a panel of speakers at the conference's opening session remained optimistic about the future of the film industry and the exhibition sector in particular.

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