This story first appeared in a special CineEurope 2016 issue of BoxOffice magazine. To subscribe to the magazine click here.
Name: Jolyon (Joe) Spurling
Company: Showtime Analytics
Title: Chief Data Officer
Country: Republic of Ireland
Jolyon Spurling was born with cinema in his blood, with his father Graham Spurling running the successful Movies@Cinemas in Europe’s most ardent cinema-going country, Ireland. His earliest cinema memory was “the magic of the projection room, the sound and lights coming from the darkness during a film showing, Dad teaching me to splice the films arriving by train on a Friday and knowing you were the only kid in school with VIP access to the actual movies!”
Yet he left cinema to focus on business analytics and data for companies such as AIB and DNM Technology for a decade. But in 2014 he co-founded Showtime Analytics with his partner Richie Power, to bring big data insights to the cinema business. It was a timely move. “Last year we would have to explain the need for data analytics, whereas this year their is a huge desire from our customers to find ways to understand the potential of their data.”
While numbers are his business, Spurling is clearly driven by passion for the cinema business and how it can improve. “The industry as a whole need to work together in a more collaborative way to confront outside threats such as Video on Demand, TV, Netflix and new ideas like the screening room. These competing mediums offer a rich, granular & highly frequent data set, which is used in a very innovative way to grow their respective markets. In the past 12 months we see our customers are starting to address this and starting to close this gap.”
He continues to be excited about the work he does. “As I lead our product design in Showtime, I spend most of my time listening to customers, understanding their requirements, identifying the product gaps in the marketplace. This then leads to the constant task of bringing together teams to build the next generation of kick ass Showtime products!”
Spurling will be attending CineEurope. “There are so many great stories of companies starting small and growing into major industry players,” Spurling says looking to the future. “I would hope that in the next 10 years that we have built a reputation as strong as these major industry brands, and be synonymous all things data technology in the industry.”
