For as long as most of us can remember, the cinema has been facing mortal threats from some new form of competition.
Even in the 1930s and 40s, when cinema admissions in the UK were at their height, some feared radio would close down their local picture house.
The threat became real in the 1950s and 60s with the arrival of television, and the glory days of a fleapit in every parish were gone for ever.
But big screen entertainment survived. How can your little black and white cathode ray tube compete with Technicolor?
But cinema attendances did decline, and in the 1970s and 80s some cinemas adapted by splitting into multi-screen affairs, one of which always seemed to be showing a porno flick for what used to be called the “dirty raincoat brigade”.
Source: Bristol’s cinemas which stood the test of time and those long gone – Bristol Live