Bigger Picture Research

Box office update 2008: Japan, Russia, China and India

In the week that figures showed Japanese industrial output plunged a record 9.6% during December (the highest monthly fall since records began in 1953), the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren) announced that total box office gross for the year fell by 1.8% to $2.16 billion (Y194.84 billion). Admissions fell by a similar proportion (1.7%), totalling 160.49 million in 2008.

On a positive note, locally made films shared 59.5% of the market, the highest such figure since 1969.

If you’ve not already visited, the Eiren web site comes highly recommended for its detailed historical data. It is one of the few trade bodies to publish market intelligence going back decades, in this case to 1955.

The site offers tables detailing, among other things, the number of Japanese cinema screens, the number of film releases, admissions, average ticket price, box office gross and local market share. A separate section also details the top performing titles in a year, going back to 2004.

I previously reported the year-end Russian box office gross for 2008, and thanks to a report in ScreenDaily we can now complete the story with news that 123.9 million tickets were sold during the year, up 16.2% on the 2007 total of 106.6 million. Russian films shared 25.5% of the total box office gross.

According to Patrick Frater, writing in Variety, China saw its box office gross grow by 27% in 2008, to $622 million, which makes it the tenth largest foreign market outside the US. Local films shared 60% of the market, according to official data.

In the same article, Frater quotes industry estimates suggesting the Indian box office fell by between 20%-40% (it’s very hard to get reliable box office numbers out of India). Unfortunately no other numbers are available.

Incidentally, Variety has published its list of top worldwide grossers in 2008. The table lists the top 99 performing titles, their US (‘domestic’) gross, foreign gross (from all the other territories the film was released in) and a combined ‘global’ gross.

You can expect much to be made of the fact that the top ten includes three blockbusting USA/UK productions (The Dark Knight, Mamma Mia! and Quantum of Solace), which between them took $2.1 billion at the global box office. But for my money the real highlight is Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Sticks), a French comedy which made it to number 18 in the chart with a global gross of $244 million, just above High School Musical 3.

Montage: French VOD, Channel 4, Oz distribution & Mamma Mia!

According to Variety, a report by research group GfK and French media consultants NPA Conseil predicts the French video-on-demand (VOD) market could double in value in 2008. NPA managing consultant Jean-Marie Le Guen estimates the French market could be worth E60 million in 2008, up from E30 million in 2007.

The study that found around 6 million VOD downloads were made during the first six months of 2008, a 61% increase over the same period a year earlier. US films saw the biggest growth rate (93%), compared with around 20% for French films and 53% for other titles. Film downloads make up about two-thirds of the French VOD market.

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Reports claim Channel 4 is to make around 150 staff redundant (15% of its total workforce) in a cost-cutting exercise to save up to £100m over two years.

It’s not yet known which areas will suffer from the budget cuts although Channel 4 has previously said it will be forced to decrease foreign acquisitions.

The FT reports:

'“It will mean less in the way of one-off dramas and high-end documentaries,” a person familiar with the nature of the cuts said. “Nobody would expect Channel 4, in an increasingly tough market, to be making cuts in programmes that make money for the company.”'

As Channel 4 is an important supporter of British and specialised film, through Film4 Productions (to the tune of around £10 million pa) and programming acquisitions, the question is how will these areas fare in the current squeeze?

Clocking docos

According to Screen Daily, a survey commissioned to coincide with the launch of BritDoc 2008 found that nearly half (48%) of UK adults regularly watch documentaries on TV compared with 10% who regularly view them on DVD and 4% who say they go to the cinema to watch them.

The research was conducted by Ipsos MORI with a sample of 1,000 British adults.

I have seen the future...and there's just one snag

Ted Leonsis, the vice chairman of AOL, has launched a new online documentary distribution service called SnagFilms.  It's a simple enough proposition: users can visit the site and view documentaries for free.

Docos down under

With the BRITDOC Festival just around the corner (23-25 July) it's worth noting that the New Zealand Film Commission and Creative New Zealand (partners in the Screen Innovation Production Fund) have just published a study of the country's independent documentary sector. It arises out of concerns about a lack of opportunity for local documentary makers to practise their craft.

The research had two objectives:

• to identify and analyse barriers and opportunities affecting documentary makers in NZ; and
• to determine the future roles of the commissioning organisations in documentary filmmaking.

The full report is available here.