A new report out from UK media researcher Screen Digest this week points out that globally films which are made in the country they are viewed are making up more and more of total viewing. Only countries like the UK are showing a fall off in locally produced films.
The calculations are done by revenue and cover 40 territories with 11 of them having revenues above $100 million, and show that Asia Pacific has the biggest swing in favor of local film consumption.
Japanese films took 53.2% of revenues during 2006, a 17.6% shift over the previous five year average. Other territories to record double-digit changes were South Korea and the Czech Republic. In South Korea, the local films’ market share has been estimated at 64.6% by trade body KOFIC, which is 14% higher than then five-year average from 2001 to 2005.
At the other end of the scale, the Hong Kong film industry recorded 11% less than its past five-year average of 40.3%. The UK film industry was down 15% to just a 19% market share for domestic films which equates to a reduction of $216 million in revenues for UK made films.
In only five territories, home-grown films were responsible for the majority of market revenues in 2006 (including India and the US), and there were 11 territories in which local origin films contributed over a quarter of box office.
Eight European territories registered lower domestic film market shares in 2006 compared with the five-year average, although the most noticeable were the UK and Denmark. Poland registered the largest year-on- year gain up by 12.7%.
The US theatrical market was worth $9.48 billion in 2006, with Hollywood taking $8.9 billon around 94%. In India too, Bollywood and other regional film industries in India are collectively worth over $1billion, only the second domestic film market to achieve this benchmark. The Japanese film industry was third-ranked with local films producing $926 million. Korean films were fourth with theatrical revenues of $683.7 million and France next at $624 million.