The underlying forces that shaped the demand for entertainment came in three pairs. The first pair, the growth of disposable income and leisure time, increased the demand for entertainment. The second pair, urbanisation and new transport networks, enabled the entertainment industry to turn more and more of this demand into consumption. The last pair, the birth rate and immigration, increased the population below thirty years of age, the sector that consumed most entertainment.

These factors did not just affect entertainment but also recreation demand in general. This chapter therefore examines the latter longitudinally along with the consumption of spectator entertainment itself. The next chapter will investigate these at the cross-section for several benchmark years.

The industrialisation hypothesis suggested that a sharp rise in demand – especially at lower incomes – caused bottlenecks in entertainment production. This resulted in large rewards for entrepreneurs that could provide more entertainment at lower prices or at a higher quality. The former will be investigated through a demand curve constructed in the next chapter, the latter will be discussed in Part II, on the quality race between film companies during the 1910s.

Underlying factors shaping demand

The increase in leisure time

Time and money both affected entertainment consumption. People had to decide how many hours to spend on labour versus leisure, what to do in the resulting free time, and how much to spend on it.