How can I add movie showtimes to a website?
July 10, 2009 9:08 AM Subscribe
How can I add movie showtimes to a website?
I am helping with a website at work that will be a showcase of local events. It's a pet project of my boss' and he has been dreaming up things to add to and ways to improve it for years. Now we are finally doing a redesign/relaunch and we're finding that his long-hoped-for idea of having a movie showtimes page on the site is not nearly as easy as we thought it would be.
We initially thought it would be as easy as pulling in an RSS feed from somewhere, but places like Yahoo or Google don't offer RSS feeds for their showtimes. Doing a little research brought up large firms that provide news and data feeds and that serve up showtimes, but that seems like something that's designed for high-level sites with national audiences. We looked at Fandango, but found their system confusing and don't like the idea of their ads on our site. I gave the list of data-serving firms to my boss so that he could request quotes, but I don't know if he did this or if he heard back.
So, is there any solution for someone who is just trying to display local showtimes?
We only have three or four movie theaters in town, but they are all owned by large chains. We don't want any ads, reviews, trailers, movie posters, box office info or any of that stuff. We just want to display a simple list of showtimes and we want it to be dynamic.
I really hope there is a way to achieve this. I've Googled myself silly because I want to help my boss and make this happen, but there is surprisingly little information out there about this. As of right now, my boss is feeling rather defeated on the issue and is resigned to just put a link to Google Movies in the menu. I personally think this will cheapen the site, so here I am making a last-ditch appeal to AskMe.
I also want to add that we don't want to steal info, either. I have seen stories from some people who rigged up a site scraper that pulled information from Yahoo Movies. There are many reasons why we don't want to do this. If they aren't providing an RSS, then there is a reason they don't want to or can't give us the data.
Thank you in advance - I hope someone can help!
I am helping with a website at work that will be a showcase of local events. It's a pet project of my boss' and he has been dreaming up things to add to and ways to improve it for years. Now we are finally doing a redesign/relaunch and we're finding that his long-hoped-for idea of having a movie showtimes page on the site is not nearly as easy as we thought it would be.
We initially thought it would be as easy as pulling in an RSS feed from somewhere, but places like Yahoo or Google don't offer RSS feeds for their showtimes. Doing a little research brought up large firms that provide news and data feeds and that serve up showtimes, but that seems like something that's designed for high-level sites with national audiences. We looked at Fandango, but found their system confusing and don't like the idea of their ads on our site. I gave the list of data-serving firms to my boss so that he could request quotes, but I don't know if he did this or if he heard back.
So, is there any solution for someone who is just trying to display local showtimes?
We only have three or four movie theaters in town, but they are all owned by large chains. We don't want any ads, reviews, trailers, movie posters, box office info or any of that stuff. We just want to display a simple list of showtimes and we want it to be dynamic.
I really hope there is a way to achieve this. I've Googled myself silly because I want to help my boss and make this happen, but there is surprisingly little information out there about this. As of right now, my boss is feeling rather defeated on the issue and is resigned to just put a link to Google Movies in the menu. I personally think this will cheapen the site, so here I am making a last-ditch appeal to AskMe.
I also want to add that we don't want to steal info, either. I have seen stories from some people who rigged up a site scraper that pulled information from Yahoo Movies. There are many reasons why we don't want to do this. If they aren't providing an RSS, then there is a reason they don't want to or can't give us the data.
Thank you in advance - I hope someone can help!
Response by poster: The website, since it is a pet project, basically needs to run itself (and has for years). We don't have the staff or the time to employ any other method of adding these to the site other than dynamically pulling it from some other source.
Thank you for the suggestion, though!
posted by bristolcat at 9:19 AM on July 10, 2009
Thank you for the suggestion, though!
posted by bristolcat at 9:19 AM on July 10, 2009
This is more complicated than you might think. Some theatres maintain that their showtimes are copyrighted, and (try to) control the publication of them. Others have proprietary agreements with favored providers and don't publish their showtimes elsewhere, to give their media partners a content edge.
You may have to do some more specific research into the individual theatre chains and their movie time publication policies.
posted by Aquaman at 9:55 AM on July 10, 2009
You may have to do some more specific research into the individual theatre chains and their movie time publication policies.
posted by Aquaman at 9:55 AM on July 10, 2009
Google has showtimes, you might look into how they get it done.
posted by rhizome at 10:08 AM on July 10, 2009
posted by rhizome at 10:08 AM on July 10, 2009
We get daily movie times for the weekly newspaper I work for and use Cinema Source to do it. However, we get a text file, not an RSS feed (which they don't do), but after working with the production department, we get a clean text design to flow into Indesign, fully formatted. From there, it literally takes a minute or two for a person to post the test on the web every morning.
That said, the link jgunsch provided is interesting. Comparing and contrasting the feed vs the text file we get shows that it's the same data. Very interesting.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:48 AM on July 10, 2009
That said, the link jgunsch provided is interesting. Comparing and contrasting the feed vs the text file we get shows that it's the same data. Very interesting.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:48 AM on July 10, 2009
Response by poster: This is more complicated than you might think. Some theatres maintain that their showtimes are copyrighted, and (try to) control the publication of them. Others have proprietary agreements with favored providers and don't publish their showtimes elsewhere, to give their media partners a content edge.
Yes, this is what I'm finding out. How frustrating! I will take your advice and look into the individual chains. That might be the ticket. Thanks!
Rhizome- that link is to a site that talks about data scraping, which I mentioned in my post we didn't want to do for a variety of reasons. Thanks, though!
Brandon - We have found Cinema Source before. I don't know if my boss contacted them or not. I have no idea how expensive they are, but it would probably be worth at least contacting them if we haven't already. But as you said, a text file is not quite as useful.
I also agree that jgunsch's link is very interesting. It's nicely done, but I have my reservations. Where is the data coming from? This is just some guy's site and I can't help but wonder if he's scraping it off Google. This could be what we want, but the borderline sketchiness of it may be a dealbreaker. That said, I will definitely be showing it to my boss on Monday.
Also, for future reference, another big firm we found that provides these feeds is Tribune Media Services. I would not be surprised to learn that this is where Google gets their data from. They seem way too big for us, though.
posted by bristolcat at 11:17 AM on July 10, 2009
Yes, this is what I'm finding out. How frustrating! I will take your advice and look into the individual chains. That might be the ticket. Thanks!
Rhizome- that link is to a site that talks about data scraping, which I mentioned in my post we didn't want to do for a variety of reasons. Thanks, though!
Brandon - We have found Cinema Source before. I don't know if my boss contacted them or not. I have no idea how expensive they are, but it would probably be worth at least contacting them if we haven't already. But as you said, a text file is not quite as useful.
I also agree that jgunsch's link is very interesting. It's nicely done, but I have my reservations. Where is the data coming from? This is just some guy's site and I can't help but wonder if he's scraping it off Google. This could be what we want, but the borderline sketchiness of it may be a dealbreaker. That said, I will definitely be showing it to my boss on Monday.
Also, for future reference, another big firm we found that provides these feeds is Tribune Media Services. I would not be surprised to learn that this is where Google gets their data from. They seem way too big for us, though.
posted by bristolcat at 11:17 AM on July 10, 2009
« Older Where can I try and buy an office chair in Toronto... | French visa scientifique while abroad Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
I'm no lawyer, but putting up showtimes doesn't seem to be anything to worry about legally.
posted by theichibun at 9:15 AM on July 10, 2009