Bigger Picture Research

Some future time in a parallel universe…

LONDON—The long spell of consensus politics continues unbroken. In his fifth term as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson heads a rainbow coalition of all the mainstream politcal parties, plus the Liberal Democrats.

The London Olympics are now no more than a faded memory, notable only for Team GB’s victories in cheese rolling, bog snorkelling and shin kicking. Meanwhile, Susan Boyle continues her record-breaking position at the top the album charts. Statistically speaking, every person and domesticated animal on the planet now has 3.2 copies apiece.

Sitting in his central London office, the Permanent Secretary to the Department for Creative Tourism Industries (known in Treasury circles as DCRETINs) has no time to ponder this cultural high-watermark. He has just placed a call with the Secretary of State.

‘Hallo?’

‘Good morning Minister, Sir Nigel here.’

‘Ah, morning. What important matters of state do you have for me today? Is Simon Cowell coming to my birthday party? We need more girls, by the way. Don’t want it to be like my 13th birthday bash at the old school. A chap shouldn’t have to wear a dress on his special day.’

‘No Minister, that’s not why I’m calling.’

Sounding deflated: ‘Oh. Do go on.’

‘Thank you, Minister. I’m phoning about our film policy. You see, film is very creative, it brings in many thousands of tourists each year and it does have the virtue of being an industry. Of sorts. So it’s a rather important part of our departmental responsibilities.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m well aware of that Sir Nigel. What of it?’

‘Well, Minister, there are murmurings of discontent among the film fraternity. Mainly producers, but others as well. They’re not at all happy.’

‘Really? I’d have thought it’d be a jolly good business to be in. Lots of parties, plenty of skirt, eh?’

‘Well you’d think so, Minister, but it seems they’re not very pleased with the way we’re directing public funding for film. The producers’ trade association, in particular, is very upset about how things have turned out. They say the industry is on its knees. It looks very bad.’

‘FUCT?’

‘Well, that may be putting it a bit strongly, Minister, but in a word: yes.’

‘No, I mean isn’t FUCT the name of the producers' trade association? Or am I getting confused?’

‘Erm, yes I think you are, Minister. Anyway, there’s quite a spirited discussion in the press; actors and Hollywood types wading in with their perfectly enunciated protestations. We need to be seen to be addressing their concerns as a matter of some urgency.’

‘Oh. Really? Gosh. Golly. Well, what’s the problem? What are they griping about, exactly?’

‘It seems they’ve exploited every lucrative piece of homegrown intellectual property that satisfies our Tax Credit Tourism Test, and it’s getting harder and harder to finance new films.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘We’ve already rebooted and revisioned the Harry Potter franchise, and after 24 films J.K. Rowling is refusing to take any further calls from Hollywood. There’s no more creative juice in the tank, as it were.’

‘Lord. Is it all bad? What about costume dramas? Aren’t we still good at those?’

‘Well, we’ve cornered the market in 3D torture-porn-Dickens-adaptations. Oliver Twisted and Bleaker House did especially well internationally. But it’s really not enough to sustain a whole industry. Besides, Dame Maggie Smith is refusing to wear a ball gag ever again.’

‘Oh dear. I see. Well what do they want us to do about it?’

‘They say much could be done simply by streamlining all the different agencies that funnel public money into film. Creating some sort of arm’s length body staffed by people with industry know how, a decent sized pot of money to make a difference, and a mandate for strategic leadership. They’re adamant that current arrangements see money spread too thinly, with no strategic co-ordination and no chance of building capacity in the industry. In short, no long term plan. No vision.’

‘Hhmmm. Sounds reasonable enough. Doesn’t it?’

‘It certainly looks sensible on paper, Minister. Definitely a good idea in principle. Most assuredly. Yes.’

‘Well, Sir Nigel? You seem to doubt the wisdom of these words even as you speak them. If it’s such a good idea, why aren’t we doing it?’

‘In practice you may decide it’s not such a good idea, Minister.’

‘Might I? Why ever not? I can’t think of any reasons off the top of my head. And if it keeps those producer chaps happy, and out of the press, then that’s all to the good.’

‘Ah, but Minister you didn’t always see it like this.’

‘Didn’t I? Are you sure? Why ever not?’

‘One of your first acts upon entering office was to disband a body not unlike that which I’ve described. You said it was a good muscle-flexing exercise.’

‘I see. Well, now the muscles are well and truly flexed, isn’t it time for another radical overhaul? Rationalisation. That’s the new watchword of government. Now, can you get SuBo's people on the line? Find out if she does birthdays.’

‘Yes, Minister.’

On sustainability: UK film policy after the UK Film Council

So there we have it. Earlier this week the culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, confirmed the widely rumoured transfer to the British Film Institute of responsibility for delivering UK film policy. Though understandably guarded, industry responses have been broadly positive, welcoming news that Lottery funding for film will increase to £43 million by 2014, and the existing tax credit will continue for the foreseeable future.

Other changes were announced, including the agglomeration of all but one of the Regional Screen Agencies into Creative England, while Film London takes the lead in promoting inward investment.

What the Minister didn’t say, of course, is how all these changes will manifest themselves. We’re told there’s a period of due diligence to go through, in addition to the obligatory industry consultation. ‘This is the beginning of a process,’ said the Minister on Monday, ‘not the end.’

Alongside the legal legwork and attentive listening, Vaizey will chair a Ministerial Film Forum to meet every six months starting in January. The Minister said the group, whose membership is yet to be announced, will start with a ‘run around the houses to address key issues.’

I’d like to humbly suggest the very first task of the Forum should be to establish the parameters of ‘a sustainable independent British film industry’, one of the stated goals for film policy set out in the Minister’s speech. It’s a phrase that needs to be unpacked for it to have any genuine utility, and it comes with plenty of historical baggage. Oh yes.

For starters, the word ‘sustainable’ has warm and positive connotations, making it popular within policy circles. But just take a moment to consider the concept- what does it actually mean?

Truth is, when deployed without further elaboration it is an entirely empty term. And its use within the context of film policy obscures rather than illuminates a number of heavyweight issues, which is probably why the UK Film Council chose to drop it a few years back. But it wasn’t always thus.

To explain further, let’s make a distinction between what we’ll call the hard concept of sustainability and the soft. The hard conception implies an enterprise capable of perpetuating itself (and, ideally, growing) without outside support or influence. It’s a version of what Sir Alan Parker, former UK Film Council Chair, dismissed as the ‘self-sustaining, purely British film industry’ that ‘has been the Holy Grail for Government and industry for many years’.  In contrast, the soft concept is the idea that a given state can be maintained at a desired level without exhausting available resources. Doesn’t sound so compelling, but it may be much more realistic.

If a course of action is pursued in accordance with the hard concept, the question of success comes down to whether or not outside support or influence is required to keep the industry afloat. If the soft conception determines policy then the question instead becomes: what level of activity is it desirable to maintain? Either way, attention must be paid to what the end destination looks like, and what route to take to get there.

Later in Sir Alan’s speech, delivered back in 2002, he poured scorn on the idea of ‘building a stable of rights owning film production companies’ as the basis for a sustainable industry. Sustainability, the early UK Film Council argument ran, was attainable only by means of distribution-led production operating from a film hub of world-class skills and infrastructure capable of attracting international investment.

Not everyone bought the argument (far from it), and in the years to follow the lack of credible evidence of ‘sustainability’ didn’t help to win over the naysayers. Problem was, no formal success criteria were ever adopted internally or approved externally. So while plenty of data were collected, analysed and published, and arguments mounted about specific achievements, the case was never convincingly made in terms of sustainability. There was no coherent framework for judging the various statistics in a way that could either substantiate or repudiate the argument.

The enemy of reason is not ignorance of facts, but a lack of understanding. And here we come to the nub of the matter. What’s needed, right from the start of this ‘exciting new vision for the British film industry’ (that’s the Minister talking), is clarity around the objectives for film, and- most importantly- a set of indicators (that may be quantitative, qualitative or both) against which to gather market intelligence and judge progress towards the goal.

It won’t be an easy task, because there are likely to be many factors at play in a sustainable industry (however one chooses to define it, whether a hard or soft conception, or something in between).* But the transparency, discipline and rigour involved are crucial to ensure both continuing support for film policy among industry players and its successful delivery over the coming years.

If you’ve followed this blog before, you can probably guess where this is leading. I think what’s really needed, and was conspicuous by its absence from last Monday’s speech, is a film policy research function capable of gathering, interpreting and disseminating data that speak directly to the indicators derived from agreement of what constitutes a sustainable industry.

I'm not going to get into the question of whether 'a sustainable independent British film industry' is even the best and most appropriate goal of film policy. Whatever the goal, my argument remains the same. It comes down to transparency, accountability and good governance.

In closing I’d like to offer up one further thought while it occurs to me. The Minister’s speech specifically mentions Pact’s proposals, but what does sustainability mean outside the direct interests of producers and production companies? What does it look like from the perspective of sales agents, post-production houses, distributors, facilities companies, exhibitors & film societies, retailers etc.? In other words, what does sustainability mean in the context of every other link in the supply chain (or value chain, if you prefer to look at things that way)? How do these perspectives cohere and diverge? Can one industrial policy accommodate them all, and is it even desirable to do so? Sir Alan didn’t think so, back in 2002. ‘We are not one film industry’, he said. ‘but many industries. One solution doesn’t fit all.’ The Minister would do well to remember this when drawing up the invitation list for his first Film Forum.

 

* (A side note- is ‘a sustainable industry’ the same as a collection of ‘sustainable organisations’? There’s some slipperiness in the Minister’s speech: the terms of debate shift in scale, back and forth, from the level of individual companies to a whole class of industry.)

Awakenings

I've spent the summer mulling the future of this blog. What began as a short break to recharge my batteries became, with surprising rapidity, a happy release from the treadmill of posts. As the weeks and months have passed I've grown accustomed to not committing my thoughts to the ether, a habit that I'm only breaking now because the moment feels right.

More than that, I've found a new purpose for the blog, and nothing is more motivating. Despite a growing readership and a subscriber base that numbers in the hundreds (i.e. a level of success for a niche blog I never anticipated), earlier this year I was struggling to justify the work involved, which contributes nothing to my income.

Fortunately, I was never in it for the money. At the time I started the blog I simply wanted to be part of a wider conversation about the film business with people who share my passion.

Truth is, the blog failed to generate the level of commentary from readers, and therefore affirmation, that I'd hoped. After nearly 200 posts, I've had 50 comments in total (for which I'm grateful, don't get me wrong).

And despite some very favourable words about the blog, some of which appear in the right-hand sidebar, I began to lose heart in the whole enterprise. It's a funny thing: when you don't get paid for your graft, you have to measure value and worth in other ways. In the absence of feedback, that's a real challenge.

So what's changed? Well, there's the small matter of the biggest shake-up in British film policy for a decade. The announcement in July that the UK Film Council is to be abolished has enormous ramifications. Whenever a big beast falls in the forest, the effect is felt up and down the food chain.

Now is not the time to unpack all that this shift in film policy augers, but one thing is clear and germane to re-launching the blog. With the Film Council gone (don't expect it to hang around much after next April) there's a very real danger that the type of research covered in this blog will cease to be available from publicly accessible sources. Goodbye Statistical Yearbook. So long UK production analyses (like that published today). No more studies into the local cinema ecology, cultural impact of British film, film education provision and so on.

Some recent commentators have ridiculed UKFC's research output, characterising it as partial and manipulated. Nonsense. The Research and Statistics Unit's output is one of the richest sources of film data and analysis anywhere in the world. Some UKFC press releases may have prioritised certain findings over others to tell a particular story, but the underlying research has always been sound, and open to scrutiny and challenge. 

But who will pick up the torch once UKFC is no more? The BFI is a likely contender. After all, they published the Film and Television Handbook for many years before the Statistical Yearbook stole their thunder. But this seems fanciful given the Institute is facing a 15% cut to its already over-stretched budget.

Maybe Arts Council England (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland)? They look favourite to inherit UKFC's lottery funding responsibilities. Trouble is, the bulk of UKFC's research activity was funded through grant-in-aid, not lottery. And that looks like it will simply vanish once the lights go off in Little Portland Street.

Besides, ACE has no previous form in handling market intelligence data of the sort we're talking about. 

So the future looks bleak for the types of research that had previously been used to inform both strategic and tactical film policy decisions, as well as supporting business planning in the private sector up and down the country. What's more, the academic research community will suffer with the loss of these free resources.

So where does that leave Bigger Picture Research? Hard to say until we know for certain what will replace UK Film Council. But if film research as we've come to know it becomes scarcer on the ground, there's even more reason to collate whatever we can still lay our hands on. Whatever new direction film policy takes, it is imperative that those in charge are held to account. That can only be achieved with insight, analysis and no small degree of hard evidence.

Bigger Picture Research has a mission.

The first post will come as soon as the government announces UKFC's successor(s). In the meantime, I'd recommend interested readers should strip mine the RSU's page on the UKFC's web site. Download as much as you can before the switch is thrown. After all, that's the baseline data we'll be working with in the months and years to come. Get it while you can.

BPR to undergo refit over the summer

BPR is going into dry dock for the summer, which means no posts for a few months.

A bit of essential maintenance is called for: barnacles will be duly scraped off, leaks patched and a new coat of paint applied.

Come September the charts and tide tables will be consulted and a new course set in preparation for relaunch. Until then, the archives will remain open and I'll continue to post research updates on Twitter.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for Angus Finney's book The International Film Business: A Market Guide Beyond Hollywood, Nevafilm's report on the Russian film distribution market (due out in June) and the UK Film Council's Statistical Yearbook in July.

Happy reading.

European digital cinema screens in 2009

As flagged last week, the European Audiovisual Observatory has published a good helping of European digital exhibition data.

According to MEDIA Salles, who collected the information, there were 4,693 screens equipped with DLP Cinema or SXRD technology at the end of 2009, a rise of 207% over 2008.

Digital screens accounted for 13% of all European screens in 2009, up from 4% in 2008 (Table 1). The average number of screens in digital sites has also risen, from 1.6 screens per site at the end of 2007 to 2.0 screens per site in 2009.

Table 1: Digital cinema sites and screens in Europe 2003 - 2009 (courtesy of European Audiovisual Observatory- click to enlarge)

 

According to MEDIA Salles, most digital theatres are found in Western Europe (Table 2). The five leading European markets in terms of admissions also have the highest number of digital screens. France accounts for 19% of the digital total, followed by the UK (14%), Germany (13%), Italy (9%) and Spain (5%).

Meanwhile, Russia has witnessed strong growth since 2008, and now accounts for 7.5% of Europe’s digital screens (352 in total).

The Observatory’s press release picks up on the fact that a handful of companies account for a large share of all digital screens. ‘In Europe’, the release explains, ‘the development of digital screens seems to be highly concentrated in terms of exhibition companies, in view of the fact that, at June 2009, 5% of exhibitors were responsible for 33.6% of the overall number of digital screens.' Further evidence, perhaps, that smaller operators are being left behind in the switch to digital.

The press release goes on:

'The top five players are the French company CGR (with 13.1% of digital screens), Kinepolis (6.8%), operating in Belgium, France and Spain; Cineworld Group (5.6%), present in the United Kingdom and Ireland; Odeon and UCI Cinemas Group (4.8%), operating as Odeon Cinemas in the United Kingdom, as UCI in Austria, Germany, Italy and Portugal and as Cinesa in Spain; Cineplexx (3.4%), present in Austria and in Italy.’

3D has proven to be a significant catalyst for digital screen growth. One indication of this is the fact that 69% of all European digital screens were 3D-ready by December 2009 (in time for Avatar in most European markets), up from 54% only six months earlier in June 2009.

Table 2: Digital cinema sites and screens in Europe by country 2007 - 2009 (courtesy of European Audiovisual Observatory- click to enlarge)

European box office, cinema admissions and feature production, 2009

With Cannes almost upon us, the European Audiovisual Observatory has released its annual round up of European box office, admissions, market share and feature production numbers, in advance of next week's publication of FOCUS 2010: World Film Market Trends.

The numbers, some of which are based on provisional data, paint an encouraging picture of cinema going and film making in apparent rude health (certainly at an aggregate level).

Headline data as follows:

• Total EU box office gross reached a record high of EUR 6.27 billion in 2009, a rise of 12% over 2008.
• Admissions rose by 6% to an estimated 981.1 million in 2009, up from 925.3 million in 2008.
• Annual box office gross increased in 21 of the 23 EU member states for which data are available, with only Ireland and Latvia seeing a decline. Admissions increased in 20 EU markets, and deceased in only six (see Table 1).
• European films had a market share of 26.7% of total EU admissions, down from 28.2% in 2008 and the lowest level since 2005.
• Market shares for national films declined in 18 out of 23 member states for which data were available in 2009.
• French films remained the most successful films in the EU market in terms of admissions. German films ranked second, taking 4.1% of the total, followed by UK productions accounting for 3.9% of total EU admissions.
• The Observatory estimates 1,168 feature films, including feature documentaries which accounted for 20% of the total, were produced in the EU in 2009, 28 more than in 2008 (the previous record year).
• The Observatory cautions that ‘differences in production measurement methodology between European countries make it difficult to evaluate the effects or non-effects of the economic crisis on overall production output in 2008 and 2009.’ ‘Nevertheless’, the press release continues, ‘the high in 2009 production data suggests that the European public funding system has prevented production levels from dropping significantly.’
• For the first time in recent years, Germany had Europe's highest production output (194 feature films), followed by France (182 features).

Click to enlarge:

You can find additional data and tables on the Observatory’s web site (including details of the top 20 performing titles at the European box office).

For those of you heading to Cannes (ash plume permitting), the Observatory is hosting a digital cinema workshop in the Salle Buñuel (Palais des Festivals) on Sunday 16th of May from 3.00 pm to 4.30 pm.

Speakers include Professor Ian Christie, Vice President of Europa Cinemas, Christine Eloy of Europa Distribution, Aviva Silver, Head of the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, and Antoine Virenque, President of the European Digital Cinema Forum. There’ll be a further announcement about European digital cinema data on 12 May.

Plus if the fancy takes you, you can swing around to the Observatory’s stand at the Marché du Film (stand A6 Riviera) and collect your free copy of FOCUS 2010: World Film Market Trends (a PDF version will be available online in due course).

A quick film business blog round up

Keeping up to date with industry commentators and the musings of well-placed insiders is one of the more enjoyable aspects of maintaining this blog. Reading widely around the subject has become a necessary habit, and it rarely becomes onerous.

The print-led trade press has always performed a valuable service in this regard, marshalling fact and opinion in digestible portions. But the internet- particularly web 2.0 platforms like Twitter, blogs and the like- puts readers/listeners/viewers in touch with developments in a more immediate and less filtered way.

Best of all, it’s possible (as suits your needs) to move seamlessly between eavesdropping and networking, between bearing mute witness to and actively participating in an ongoing conversation among the informed, the interested or the idly curious.

Quite how dynamic this free and fulsome exchange of film business information has become is evidenced by the blog roll in the right hand sidebar, which has grown enormously since this blog started, and continues to expand (although it is still only a fraction of what’s out there).

Anyway, I want to draw attention to some recent additions that make an excellent contribution to the ongoing conversation.

I’ll start with the most recent of recent additions, The A.K.A. Indie Film Blog. Author and industry consultant Jeremy Juuso kicked off this blog last month with a post about Cantor Fitzgerald’s movie futures market, the Cantor Exchange.

Juuso is author of Getting the Money: A Step-by-Step Guide for Writing Business Plans for Film, and I first strayed across his writings from a link on Ted Hope’s blog to a post on Baseline Research’s Research Wrap site about the box office chances of ‘self-released specialty films’ in the US.

It’s a canny and provocative analysis (witness Hope’s commentary), and the issues raised are absolutely pertinent at this time of shifting film distribution models.

As well as filing copy for Baseline Research, Juuso runs a consultancy whose web site hosts a marvellous array of freely accessible film data.

Throughout 2009 Juuso published monthly PDF reports listing independent and ‘independent-style’ films released theatrically in the US. Among the data included for each title are details of their theatrical release pattern and box office numbers, the involvement of above-the-line star talent, plus estimates of the budget and a summary of financing sources.

The information is derived from various online and public sources, and each title takes Juuso around 2-3 hours to research. ‘The goal’, as Juuso told me when I enquired about his approach, ‘is to paint a clearer picture for filmmakers and investors of just what kind of landscape they face when launching an indie film geared toward the US market.’

The result is a detailed release catalogue, of obvious benefit to anyone drafting a business plan or thinking of acting on one (or, for that matter, anyone trying to understand the way the contemporary indie sector operates in the US).

Screen Finance used to provide a similar service in the UK (for the price of a subscription), until it bit the dust last year (the bfi Library tells me the last issue of Screen Finance they hold is dated 17 December 2009, following Tim Adler’s departure to manage the London bureau of Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood blog). In the absence of Screen Finance, I’d love to see Juuso’s approach replicated in the UK and Europe.

Alongside the monthly PDFs you can find The A.K.A. Report 2009, an overview of the US theatrical market based on analysis of summary data. And returning to where we began, the first post on Juuso’s A.K.A. blog lays bare the operation of the Cantor Exchange in lucid detail (check out entertainment attorney Roger Goff's blog for another view of the same). If, like me, you’re only dimly aware of terms like ‘going long’ and the ‘short position’ from coverage of the global banking crisis, Juuso’s post lifts the shroud on this arcane world and makes it comprehensible.

Now to a blog of a very different order. David Graham is CEO of Attentional, a television industry data provider and consultancy that supplies, among other things, BARB data to the UK Film Council, and is responsible for a number of film-related projects over the years including a study of the economic impact of the UK screen industries (with Cambridge Econometrics and Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates).

Graham’s newly launched blog, Building an Entertainment Powerhouse, takes a critical look at the current model for UK TV, setting out alternatives informed by a staunchly (but not unthinking) free market approach. There’s an engaging openness about the posts, and Graham has the advantage of working from hard data in crafting and elaborating his position. Check out, for example, his posts on the desirability of a European Pay-TV platform, and the growth of internet-based TV viewing and its implications for the licence fee. It’s still relatively early days, but this blog is definitely one to watch and will no doubt become more relevant if the general election goes David Cameron’s way tomorrow.

Over the coming weeks I plan to introduce other relevant industry blogs in a similar way, so if you have any suggestions for inclusion I’d be grateful to hear them. I’m particularly interested to learn about film business blogs from outside the UK and US.

Australian theatrical market update, 2009

And so to the business of working through the backlog.

Screen Australia released a series of updates to its Get the Picture resource a couple of weeks back.

Among the new data is an updated list of top grossing films at the Australian box office; annual admissions and box office gross totals, plus the top performing titles in 2009 by country of origin; average cinema ticket prices in 2009; and data on the growth of digital screens.

Brief highlights as follows:

• Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time in Australia, having taken Aus$108,621,853 by 7 March 2010, the first film released in Australia to earn over Aus$100 million.
• Total box office gross stood at Aus$1,087.5 million in 2009, up 15% on the previous year.
• Admissions also rose, by more than 7% to 90.7 million.
• The average ticket price was Aus$11.99, a rise of 21% over the past four years.
• The number of digital screens has risen from 27 in 2006 to 311 in 2009.

Check out the full list of updates for further information.

Incidentally, you can find additional commentary by Ellen Pittleman on the Australian theatrical market in Screenline’s 2009 Global Box Office Review (which covers other territories as well; reports for Brazil, China and France have recently been published). It’s all available for free and well worth a look.

UK cinema admissions and UK feature production activity, Q1 2010

Volcanic hyperemesis and bureaucratic incompetence conspired to keep me and the family in Portugal for a week longer than planned, hence the lack of recent posts. But at least we enjoyed a few more days at arm’s length from election campaigning (more of which later).

Looking across various news feeds, trade publications and assorted correspondence I see it’s been quite a fecund period for the type of research of interest here. I won’t attempt to cover it all in a single post, so expect a burst of activity over the next week as I work through the backlog.

To ease back into the swing of things, let’s begin with a UK-themed update on first quarter activity.

First off, cinema admissions. Last week, cinema advertising firm Pearl and Dean (P&D) was finally sold off for £1 after four years on the market. Regular readers will recall P&D forms one half of the Cinema Advertising Association (along with Digital Cinema Media), the trade association whose charitable work includes releasing monthly admissions data compiled by Nielsen EDI/Rentrak. Here’s hoping P&D’s new owners continue in this same vein in future.

In the meantime, the CAA has released admissions numbers for March, allowing us to gauge the strength of the UK theatrical market during the first quarter of the year. It’s a positive picture, with a total of 14,482,606 tickets shifted in March- the strongest performance for the month in recent memory.

This brings the total for the first three months of the year to 43,957,027, up 6% on the same period in 2009, and the highest figure since 2002 (Figure 1). Clearly the big screen continues to work its magic on audiences.

Figure 1: UK cinema admissions, Q1 (January to March) 2002 to 2010

Source: CAA/ Rentrak

Turning to UK feature production, the UK Film Council has released the latest data from its regular tracking work, covering the first three months of the year. 23 feature films with budgets of £500k or more started principal photography in the UK during this period, the lowest number since 2005 (Table 1).

Source: UK Film Council

The number of UK domestic features (those made by a UK production company and produced wholly or partly in the UK) and inward investment features (those that are ‘substantially financed and controlled from outside the UK, where the production is attracted to the UK because of script requirements, the UK’s infrastructure or UK tax incentives’) both fell from the level seen in 2009. On the positive side, the decline in UK co-production activity appears to have stabilised, for the time being at least.

The money spent in the UK on making these features stood at £426.5 million, which is considerably lower than the amount spent in 2009 (£485.1 million), but remains higher than the levels of previous years (Table 2).

Source: UK Film Council

Honouring their commitment to provide market intelligence specifically about UK independent films, the UK Film Council reports 2010 saw less activity than in recent years (Table 3), although this is ‘principally due to the decline in co-productions’.

Source: UK Film Council

Interestingly, the median budget of UK independent films (£3.0 million) was higher during the first quarter of 2010 than it has been for some time (between 2007 and 2009 the figure hovered around £1.9 million). This is due to the fact that four of the 18 UK indie features had budgets over £5 million.

The report ends with a projection of full year production activity based on Q1 results. The UK Film Council tentatively suggests the year could see UK production spend hit £907 million in 2010, making it ‘one of the better years on record’.

Given the hefty contribution of inward investment activity to this total, much will depend on the continued attractiveness of the UK as a production base for US studio productions; and the outcome of the general election may prove influential. If we're to believe the pundits, a hung Parliament may further weaken the pound on the international currency markets, and a stronger dollar makes the UK more attractive for inward investment features.

While on the subject of the election, Labour is the only party to mention film explicitly in their manifesto. ‘The strength of Britain’s film industry’, we’re told, ‘is a source of pride'. Labour has committed to maintain the film tax credit and to proceed with the BFI/ UK Film Council merger. In other words, business as we've come to expect it, except of course there’ll be a lot less public money available for film over the next Parliament.

Meanwhile, neither the Liberal Democrats nor the Conservatives mention film in their manifestos, which is hardly surprising given all the urgent matters of State requiring attention (in which context, Labour’s manifesto reference is all the more remarkable).

The Liberal Democrats talk of safeguarding the future of ‘Britain’s creative industries’ by ‘supporting upgrades to our digital infrastructure and taking action to tackle illegal file-sharing’, and of fostering ‘an environment in which all forms of creativity are able to flourish’. This will be principally by means of a Creative Enterprise Fund offering ‘training, mentoring and small grants or loans to help creative businesses get off the ground’. But past evidence suggests getting creative businesses off the ground is rarely a problem- it's keeping them afloat and thriving that proves challenging.

The Conservative manifesto makes only glancing reference to ‘arts and heritage’, but not film per se. This is disappointing, especially given publication late last year of Maud Mansfield’s ‘Report on the British Film Industry for Shadow DCMS’. It's a rather admirable document, both balanced and well-researched.

Alas, none of it found its way into the main manifesto, which talks of ‘making Britain a European hub for hi-tech, digital and creative industries’ (whatever that means). We do know the Conservatives plan to scrap the Regional Development Agencies, which will affect the Regional Screen Agencies whom they co-fund and, therefore, support for film in England.

There's little point in speculating further about future film policy. We'll know more next week...

Russian film market intelligence

Ksenya Leontyeva, Senior Analyst at Nevafilm Research, dropped me a line the other week to introduce further examples of Nevafilm's research (you can find an interview with Ksenya about the company's activities on the Media Salles site).

You may recall last year I wrote about a report on the Russian film industry compiled by Nevafilm and RFilms, published by the European Audiovisual Observatory. I was impressed enough by the work to list it as one of my discoveries of the year last December.

Nevafilm Research has since issued reports on the Russian theatrical market in 2009 and the expansion of digital cinema across the territory (which can be found here). On this latter point, Nevafilm has launched an online database of Russian digital screens, currently listing 382 of such screens in 292 cinemas across 116 cities.

And there's welcome news that the company is currently working on a report on Russian film distribution, covering theatrical, DVD, TV and digital media markets. The report ('The Film Distribution Market In Russia') should be available in early summer (around May, according to the web site) and Nevafilm is now accepting pre-orders. I plan to post further details on publication.

More on East Midlands investments

Last October I posted about the East Midlands Media Investments Fund (EMMI), as featured in EM Media's review of Economic Achievements 2008/09, which I was covering at the time.

Just last week EM Media and the East Midlands Development Agency announced a further round of EMMI investments, totalling over half a million pounds, including four feature films (The Brutal Game, Oranges and Sunshine, Tyrannosaur and The Weekender), a feature documentary (AnDa Union), TV development (Over the Hill and Under Cover), a documentary short (PS, Your Mystery Sender), a Facebook application (GangstaPets), and an online game (Natural Born Racer).

A tenth project will be announced shortly, and EM Media anticipates these investments will together deliver over 90 jobs, generating around £13 million for the East Midlands economy. This latest round of support brings EM Media's total to 37 feature films, 75 short films, 15 TV and 15 games and interactive investments to date.

Further information, including details of the talent involved in the funded projects, can be found on EM Media's web site.

UK cinema admissions, February 2010

The latest monthly admissions issued by the Cinema Advertising Association reveal a slight decline in February 2010 compared with the same month last year, but the year to date total remains marginally higher than in 2009.

February saw 14,890,936 tickets sold, 0.5% down on 2009's tally. This brings the year to date total to 29,474,421, a smidgeon above the same total for January and February 2009 (see Figure 1), making it the best opening two months since 2003.

The link is dead at the moment, but when Pearl & Dean have rectified it you'll find a list of the top ten performing titles in February on their web site (no prizes for guessing the top placed film...).

Figure 1: January and February cinema admissions, 2002 to 2010

Source: Cinema Advertising Association/ Rentrak EDI

UK films at the world box office in 2009

Figures released by the UK Film Council show the UK's share of world box office gross fell to its lowest level since records began in their present form in 2002 (Figure 1). As the chart makes clear, it's a wildly fluctuating picture year-on-year, driven by the performance of a small number of big hits.

UK films grossed around $2 billion in 2009, a 6.7% share of the total global theatrical market, down from 15.1% in 2008 when The Dark Knight, Quantum of Solace and Mamma Mia! topped the rankings (Table 1).

The highest grossing UK films in 2009 were led by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Slumdog Millionaire and Sherlock Holmes.

The UK Film Council expects UK market share to climb again in 2010, courtesy of some big inward investment feature releases during the year (starting with Clash of the Titans, which opens in April in most territories, and ending with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I as the year closes).

Figure 1: UK films global market share 2002 to 2009 (click to enlarge)

Sources: MPAA, Screen Digest, UK Film Council

Table 1: Top three UK films at the global box office, 2002 to 2009

Sources: MPAA, Screen Digest, UK Film Council             *still on release as at 25 March 2010

RIP NPA

As a rule I don't post 'straight' news stories unless they have a specific research angle. But rules are there to be broken, as our MPs keep reminding us, and I feel moved to record my thoughts on this particular story. It's not even a fresh item, which shows how rubbish I am at this sort of thing.

Anyway, the New Producers Alliance announced on 8 March it has closed for business, which is a huge pity. I once gave a talk about UKFC research to an NPA audience at the invitation of former CEO David Castro, and it was a great evening during which I learned as much as I hope those attending did. And earlier this month I was due to appear on a panel discussing marketing and distribution as part of the NPA's 9 Point Producer Training programme, but the session was pulled when the company started to wind up its operations.

The announcement, made on the NPA web site, blames 'the recession and increased competition for training', which have 'contributed to a loss of membership income.' I wonder whether these two factors are linked, as more players enter the training arena to supplement income from other sources hit by the economic downturn. Here's how Netribution covers the story.

This is bad news all round, as the Netribution post makes clear. Independent filmmaking has never been an easy path to tread, and while digital wotnots and social doodabs have handed the creative tools to the self-organising masses, money remains tighter than ever and competition for audience attention is at its fiercest. To be sure, these are exhilarating and dizzying times for aspiring producers. But dizziness, as any five year old who has puked on their own shoes will tell you, can be disorientating with unfortunate consequences.

Which is where organisations like the NPA can really prove their worth, offering much needed advice and support, training and networking opportunities, and generating a sense of common purpose and collective identity.

Arguably, the NPA may have fallen victim to the explosion of 'free' networking and peer support that now exists for indie filmmakers, on both sides of the Atlantic. But as with all these things, there remains a need for trusted brands who offer high quality services to complement the free stuff. After all, no one ever got a balanced diet gorging vol-au-vents stacked high at a complimentary buffet.

Still, premium services have to be made to pay, and maybe this is just another reminder that the cult of free (yup, that includes blogs) has far reaching consequences at all levels of business and culture. Speaking of which, there are two excellent posts by Michael R Barnard on this very subject over on Truly Free Film (part one looks at the fate of the film biz trade press, and part two laments the rise of 'near free' Redbox DVD rentals).

Montage: French film in 2009; MPAA theatrical market statistics; FDA Yearbook; digital cinema; UK facilities sector

What a week it’s been for film business research. I'm struggling to keep up.

On Tuesday the Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC) published an overview of French film production in 2009, followed on Wednesday with news of the 2009 worldwide box office from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). 

And only yesterday the Film Distributors Association (FDA), a UK trade body, published its statistical Yearbook at a launch hosted by FDA President Lord Puttnam.

This joyous bestowal of manna from heaven is not just confined to the last seven days. The previous week saw a digital cinema update from Screen Digest, and the UK Screen Association released its study of the UK facilities sector.

A surfeit of statistics indeed, but it'd be churlish to complain. Let's loosen our belts and get stuck in, starting with the CNC report (Bilan de la production cinématographique en 2009).

The press release paints a sobering picture: production investment fell by over one quarter (26.3%) to stand at €1.1 billion in 2009, compared with €1.5 billion in 2008. And fewer films were made during the last year, declining from 240 in 2008 to 230.

Of these, fewer were big budget features, and there was a consequent decrease in average budget size, which stood at €5.1 million in 2009 compared with €5.6 million in 2008 (adjusted to counter the distorting effect of the very highest budget films in 2008). For the first time since 2002, no French majority production was budgeted over €40 million. The full report also goes into detail about investment by French broadcasters and the CNC itself, and provides an overview of co-production activity plus plenty of other telling insights.

Over the pond, the MPAA’s Theatrical Market Statistics 2009 report serves up an equally hearty portion of market intelligence, ranging across worldwide box office and admissions trends, audience demographics, screen numbers and US production levels.

Briefly:

• Global box office gross totalled $29.9 billion, an increase of 7.6% over 2008;
• The US/Canada box office hit $10.6 billion, up more than 10% year on year;
• 3D releases accounted for 11% of the US/Canada total, compared with 2% in 2008 (and this from only 20 3D releases in 2009, up from eight the year before);
• 1.4 billion cinema tickets were sold in US/Canada, rising 5.5% over 2008- the first such increase in two years. Admissions per capita also increased to 4.3 in 2009. According to the press release, ‘sales were fuelled by repeated visits to the cinema by frequent moviegoers – those who go to the movies once a month or more and who make up only 10% of the population – who bought half of all tickets sold in 2009’;
• Worldwide there were around 150,000 screens, and 11% of these (16,000) are digital (more on this later);
• There were 6,039 cinema sites in the US, and Megaplexes (with 16 or more screens), which account for 29% of all screens, saw strongest growth in 2009. Almost half (46%) of all screens are now located in Multiplexes (8-15 screens), and single screen venues represent just 4% of the total.
• The production of US films has declined over the last three years, and in 2009 the number released in the US decreased 12%, the first such decline since 2003. The press release attributes this to all manner of recent trials and tribulations including, ‘labor issues affecting the industry in 2007-08, the recession and the challenges to investment recovery due to rampant content theft, and the decline in DVD sales.’

Check out the full report (a free PDF download) for further detail and some eye-catching time series charts.

Lord Puttnam’s address at the launch of the FDA’s Yearbook made much of the opportunities for new distribution models afforded by digital media and social networking. The Yearbook itself is available on request from the FDA, and according to Stuart Kemp, writing in The Hollywood Reporter, it contains some ‘mouth watering stats’, including the fact that ‘one in every five pounds spent at the UK box office was forked out on comedies last year’, and ‘one in every eight pounds was spent […] on 3D movies’.

This latter point echoes data about the growth of 3D presented by Screen Digest as part of its Cinema Intelligence service. 55% of the 16,405 digital screens worldwide are 3D capable. A Screen Digest press release describes the growth of 3D screens in 2009 as ‘nothing short of explosive, with a global growth rate of 254.5%, but this average is dwarfed by the growth rate of 614% in Western Europe’.

The release also notes tests are being conducted with 3D alternative content (e.g. 3D sports broadcasts), a subject previously covered in a Screen Digest report dedicated to alternative content (which was also addressed by Beyond Live: digital innovation in the performing arts, a study of live theatre screenings in cinemas by Hasan Bakhshi and Juan Mateos-Garcia of NESTA and Professor David Throsby).

Anyway, here’s what David Hancock, Screen Digest’s Head of Film and Cinema, had to say about the revitalising potential of digital roll out:

“The release of Avatar was the BC/AD moment for digital cinema, taking us from the prehistory of the first 10 years, characterized by research, false commercial starts, standards development and early pioneers, to the modern world of commercial cinema as it will be in the decades to come. Digital 3D, opera, theatre, music and comedy in cinemas, live 3D sport, and interactive adverts are all a part of cinema in the future; not just a place to watch movies but a multi-arts venue which can be the heart of small and large communities alike. The refreshment of cinema is firmly underway and it is now taking its place as an integral part of the digital media landscape on the one hand, and as a revitalised leisure venue on the other.”

The UK Facilities Sector: a key contributor to the film and television industries and to the UK’s creative economy, a study undertaken by Olsberg SPI and Trends Business Research on behalf of UK Screen Association, Ascent Media and the UK Film Council, shines a light on an oft overlooked part of the business- the all important facilities sector, which includes post-production, equipment hire, visual effects, graphics, transmission services, studios, outside broadcast and physical effects companies.

According to the press release, the study estimates the UK sector had an annual turnover of £2.2 billion in 2008.

Other key findings to note:

• The sector comprises 1,300 companies, employing more than 25,000 people.
• Despite this large number of companies, ‘only a very few have achieved scale in their operations’.  The sector is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises, with 99% of firms employing fewer than 250 people, and 78% employing fewer than 10.

The report also contains an obligatory ‘economic impact’ assessment for 2008, with an estimate of jobs generated by the sector (50,850), the sector's Gross Value Added (totalling £1.6 billion) and contribution to the Exchequer (£262 million, excluding VAT).

There, we made it. Here's hoping for a quiet weekend.

UK cinema admissions, January 2010

I’m guessing at this very moment there’s a pair of black tuxedo trousers awaiting service in a dry cleaners somewhere in southern California.

Inside one of the trouser pockets is a single sheet of crumpled paper, an unread acceptance speech that begins in the spirit of, ‘I’d like to thank so many people, starting with my blah blah…’, and ends something like:  ‘I'VE CONQUERED THE THIRD DIMENSION...I AM THE EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE! etc.’

Of course, James Cameron wasn’t the only runner-up at last Sunday’s Oscar® ceremony. But he’s certainly become the most talked (and written) about. Still, there’s surely consolation in knowing that Avatar has generated revenues that would bring an embarrassed flush even to the cheeks of the Goldman Sachs board (worldwide box office gross total currently stands at around $2.6 billion according to The Numbers).

By last weekend (5-7 March), Avatar had shifted nearly £89 million worth of cinema tickets in the UK. It is by far and away the largest haul in recent box office history, and a quite staggering achievement. But that doesn’t mean there’s been a bonanza in cinema admissions during the twelve weeks since the film was first released, as the latest UK admissions numbers released by the Cinema Advertising Association show. That’s because Avatar’s commercial success has been boosted by the higher ticket prices charged for digital 3D screenings.

According to the CAA figures, January saw 14,583,485 admissions, a mere 0.5% rise over the same month in 2009. The inclement weather played its part: ice and snow brought what headline writers describe as ‘travel chaos’ to much of the country. Even so, January 2010 narrowly recorded the highest admissions for the month since 2004, and Avatar generated the lion share.

Figure 1: January cinema admissions, 2002 to 2010

Source: Cinema Advertising Association/ Rentrak

By the way, it’s all change over on the Digital Cinema Media (DCM) web site. DCM (Carlton Screen Advertising, as was) is one half of the Cinema Advertising Association (along with Pearl & Dean), and they’ve recently revamped their online shop window.

Fortunately DCM has retained the bit of most interest here, UK monthly admissions data, although the section is no longer labelled as such. DCM now describes admissions as ‘impacts’, which is marketing speak for eyeballs on screen, as opposed to bums on seats in old parlance. It's a purely semantic difference because the underlying data are exactly the same.

New data: film on UK TV

On the day the BBC Trust published the BBC Executive's strategic proposals for the corporation (which represent either a radical shake-up or mere window dressing, depending on who you believe), the UK Film Council published its annual overview of film on UK television.

To be strictly accurate, the stats cover only the five terrestrial channels and not those available for free or by subscription via cable, satellite or digital platforms.

Nonetheless, the picture is an interesting one - especially given its impeccable timing.

The UK Film Council report reveals a total of 2,218 films were shown on the five main network channels in 2009, much the same figure as in 2008. Channel 4 scheduled the most (561) and BBC1 brought up the rear with 338 (see Table 1 and Figure 1, courtesy of the UK Film Council).

Just over one fifth (22%) of the total were British films (the proportion stood at 23% in 2008), and BBC 2 led the way with almost one in three films (32%) originating in the UK. That at least squares with the BBC Executive's proposal for BBC Two to 'cement its role as the principal showcase for UK films in which BBC Films has invested.'

Recent UK titles (those released theatrically in the 8 years prior to TV broadcast) accounted for 7% of all films broadcast. The proportion of recent UK films shown on the main networks has increased over the last eight years, rising from 3% in 2002. According to the UK Film Council, this

'reflects the increase in the total number of films produced in the UK over the last decade and the shortened window between theatrical and free-to-air TV broadcast for films funded by BBC Films and Film Four.'

Curiously I couldn't find any substantive reference to BBC Films in the corporation's strategy proposals (other than that previously mentioned), so I assume funding for feature production will continue at the present level (£12 million per annum). But the proposals announced today do make other references to the BBC's approach to film in future.

For one thing, the Beeb intends to reduce spending on imported programmes and films 'by 20%, capping it thereafter at no more than 2.5p in every licence fee pound.' Does that mean studio-backed and distributed UK/US inward investment features (which qualify as culturally British for the tax credit) will be exempt? I guess it depends on the definition of an import.

The BBC is planning to spend the money thus saved by investing in 'new original British content to replace the acquired programmes and films from abroad which will be significantly cut back as part of this strategy.' So perhaps BBC Films will get a boost to its budget, after all...

The strategy proposals don't just apply to programming. Under these plans, the BBC web site is facing some judicious pruning. In fact whole branches will be lopped off, including the /filmfestival page which has not been updated since 2007. And the main /film page will be shorn of 'generic content', to include instead only content 'which has featured on BBC programmes or content to which the BBC has added distinctive editorial value.'

Quite what that means in practice is anybody's guess. But if you feel moved to plead the case for more (or less) of Mark Kermode et al on the box/radio/web you have until 25 May to submit a response to the BBC Trust's consultation.

Unblocked at last

I recently came across mention of BPR in a student blog. The author writes encouragingly of the ‘quality and depth’ of my posts, but wonders when I find the time to ‘eat or sleep or go to the toilet’.

For the record I can confirm my basic biological needs are attended to. I find the knack is not to do any two of them at the same time.

Ironically, the student’s post coincided with the longest period of inactivity on this blog since it started in June 2008.

This is principally due to an abundance of paid work, because of necessity I have developed the freelancer’s aversion to saying ‘no’. In consequence, gainful employment (rather than eating, sleeping or the other) has kept me from blogging.

The weather hasn’t helped. February, the season of sniffles and fellow mournfulness, always casts me into a bit of a funk.

Then a curious thing happened: I developed blogger's block. The longer I left writing the next post, the easier it was not to bother at all.

But now the paid work flow has eased somewhat, and the days are getting discernibly longer, I feel able to pick up the pace again; starting with a skim through some of the more notable research items since I last posted.

The 60th Berlin International Film Festival came and went during the month, and to mark the occasion the European Audiovisual Observatory published its annual round up of admissions and box office data. The Observatory estimates total EU admissions increased to around 985 million in 2009, up 6.5% on the 2008 tally and marking the highest level since 2004.

According to the press release:

Admissions increased in 18 out of the 24 EU member states for which data were available. In absolute terms Germany registered the most significant growth (+16.9 million, +13.1%), followed by France (+10.9 million, +5.7%), the United Kingdom (+9.3 million, +5.6%) and Poland (+5.4 million, +16.1%). For the first time in the past five years Spain reported an increase in admissions (+2.8%), whereas attendance decreased marginally in Italy (-0.4%).

Click to enlarge:

Source: European Audiovisual Observatory

There was more European-themed news this month with the launch of Screenbase, an online database of European film information courtesy of Screen International. If you’re not a Screen International subscriber be advised to check out the database while you can. It’s free to use during beta stage, but will soon be bricked up behind the Screen Daily pay wall.

At a time when trade publications like Screen International are switching online business models it’s heartening to find a new service that’s free at the point of use (for the time being, at least). Hong Kong based Film Business Asia, co-founded by Patrick Frater and Stephen Cremin, provides a business news and data service built on information contained in ‘a multilingual database of Asian cinema that has been in active development since 1993’.

The beta site launched in January this year, and is due for a ‘fuller launch’ in Q2 2010, when some form of pay wall may well come into operation.

‘Get in there while you can’ is a recurring theme of this post. Which reminds me: I have to see a man about a dog, so if you'll excuse me...

Lords and superheroes: saviours of British film?

Having waited diligently for nearly a year, there’s a certain irony in the fact that, now it has finally been published, I’m too busy to write a decent post about the Lords Communications Committee report into the British film and television industries.

Fortunately there’s not a great deal to say. It’s a perfectly respectable report of its kind, full of facts and opinion, plus the familiar spectacle of well-intentioned hand wringing and exhortation. Just the sort of narrative one would expect.

Trouble is, it’s all so familiar. In cinematic terms, the Lords report is not so much a sequel to previous Parliamentary enquiries (like the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee report on The British Film Industry 2002/03). It’s actually closer in spirit to a remake.

Not a slavish shot-for-shot copy, like Gus Van Sant’s Psycho (1998), or a pointless transposition like Stephen T. Kay’s Get Carter (2000). It’s more like James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma (2007) when held up against Delmer Dave’s 1957 original. Different, and not without merit, but the same.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Evidence was heard from many of the same witnesses, and the challenges besetting our home industry are well known and, it would appear, largely unchanging.

But I can’t help feeling an opportunity has been missed. The Lords Committee took nearly a year to arrive at its conclusions, and commendable though they are (extend the tax credit, outlaw camcording in cinemas, encourage more private investment in film production, invest more in training, secure greater support for British film by broadcasters etc.) I’d like to have seen evidence of more innovative thinking and some fresh voices in the public policy debate.

In short, I’d like to have seen a ‘reimagining’, not a remake; a report resembling the 21st Century Battlestar Galactica, not The Thomas Crown Affair (1999).

The Lords report is subtitled ‘Decline or opportunity?’, but there’s very little in it of real substance about future opportunities. The ‘coming of digital distribution could offer opportunities for a different distribution model’, states one of the report’s conclusions, but without any concrete detail about the form this might take, or how the British industry, as opposed to the US studios, might benefit. The Lords report simply echoes the earlier Commons report observation that digital technology will have a transformative effect on the business. And…?

On another tack, there’s an example of alternative thinking in the latest issue of Screen International, where Slingshot CEO Arvind Ethan David speculates on the lessons the British film industry might learn from Marvel Entertainment’s strategy of superhero franchise-building.

I don’t know whether the case has genuine merit (when I read the article, Stormbreaker [2006] came to mind, a British property made and distributed by UK indies that failed to take off as a franchise). But it’s surely worth considering within the public policy mix, along with other more radical perspectives that would benefit from an airing once in a while.

2009 box office and admissions round up: Australia, Denmark, Hungary, Romania

Screen Australia recently released its analysis of Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia data, with news that the Australian box office totalled AUS$1.09 billion in 2009, the highest on record and an increase of 16% on 2008’s haul. (The press release doesn’t give an annual admissions total).

Of the 418 films released in Australia during the year, 50 were local productions which shared 5% of the market (AUS$54.8 million). Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer was the top performing Australian title, grossing $15 million.

Screen Australia reports that the 34 British films on release secured 9% of the market in 2009 (AUS$98.2 million), and US films shared 83% (AUS$899.4 million).

The press release also sheds some interesting light on the way Screen Australia is developing its approach to measuring and reporting audiences for Australian film.

“Our Research Unit has been analysing case studies of films over their entire first-release life cycle”, notes Dr Ruth Harley, Screen Australia CEO.

“Kokoda, for example, which took $3.2 million at the box office in 2006, recorded approximately 316,000 admissions. The film went on to achieve in excess of 1.3 million viewings in the two and a half years from cinema release to first free-to-air television broadcast. Cinema admissions accounted for just 24 per cent of these viewings […] It’s a high priority for Screen Australia in 2010 to better understand downstream viewings as we refine a new range of measures to reflect audience engagement with Australian screen production.”

Hopefully these new measures will also factor in audiences for Australian films viewed on digital platforms, including online and mobile devices. (An aside: just imagine if a public agency had the courage to publish data about the incidence of file sharing of its national films, not as an indicator of illegal or unethical activity but as another metric for audience engagement...)

Back to reality, and over in Denmark cinema admissions increased slightly in 2009, rising from 13.1 million in 2008 to 13.9 million. Disappointingly, Danish films achieved a market share of 17% (2.4 million admissions), the lowest level since 2000 and a fall from 33% in 2008 (when local blockbuster Flame and Citron performed strongly). The top performing Danish title, Anders Matthesen’s What Goes Around, garnered 402,000 admissions, while Lars von Trier’s Antichrist mustered only 83,000 (was it something the fox said?).

Hungary saw cinema admissions total 9.3 million in 2009, pretty much on a par with 2008, and Hungarian films shared around 10% of ticket sales. Meanwhile box office gross for the year rose by just over 10%, although no total is given in the report carried by Film New Europe.

Another report by Film New Europe puts Romanian admissions at 4.6 million in 2009, a rise of 43% on the previous year. Box office gross totalled 78.2 million RON, up by 60% on 2008’s total. No market share for local films is given.

All these numbers, and those of previous posts, are summarised in the table below.

Table 1: Selected 2009 admissions, box office gross and national market shares

Numbers above 1 have been rounded to nearest whole integer
* UK and Republic of Ireland box office gross = £1.05 billion.
** This total is for all UK-qualifying films, including inward investment features made with US studio involvement. UK films produced independently of US studios shared 8.5% of the home market.

'-' data unavailable

Sources:
Screen Australia, China Film Group, CNC, Cinetel, Cineuropa.org, Film New Europe, Nielsen EDI, UK Film Council, Adams Media Research.