Far from killing the cinema industry, video film rental has revived the public's interest in going to the cinema. As a result, multi-screen cinemas or multiple cinema complexes have appeared in the main towns. These cinemas can have up to 20 screens and show a great variety of films. Renting film is an important pastime; in 1990 over 374 million video tapes were rented. People also buy tapes as presents. However, the commonest use of video recorders is to record programmes from the TV to watch at a more convenient time. Far from encouraging excessive TV watching, video recorders have been used mainly to control the times at which people watch. This also contributed to a decline in the number of hours of TV people watch, because they watch videos instead. During the 1980s there was an enormous boom in the number of people buying video recorders, and shops to provide expanded the video tapes they wanted. Video viewing became such a way of life, along with take-away food and an increased interest in wine drinking, that the perfect night socialising at home has been jokingly described as consisting of a video, a wine box and a take-away curry. "Do you fancy coming over to my place to watch a video?" is a typical invitation
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