OTTAWA – Film and television production in Canada experienced an overall decrease in production volume of 0.8% to $5.82 billion from $5.86 billion between 2011/12 and 2012/13, according to a new report from the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA).
The report, Profile 2013: An Economic Report on the Screen-Based Production Industry in Canada, provides a statistical overview of the three main screen-based production sectors in Canada: Canadian production (includes television and theatrical), foreign location and service production, and broadcaster in-house production. These sectors helped sustain 127,700 full-time jobs in 2012-2013.
After experiencing a sharp rise in 2011/12, the total numbers for independent film and television production in 2012/13 dropped from $2.91 billion to $2.67 billion. TV contributed greatest to the drop, down 9.8% to $2.32 billion, including a reduction in the number of shows produced from 693 in 2012 to 629 in 2013. By contrast, Canadian theatrical feature film production increased by 3.2% to $351 million with the production of 93 films.
Foreign location and service production were up 3.1% from $1.68 billion in 2011/12 to $1.74 billion. The fastest growth in 2012/13 came from the broadcaster in-house production sector, up 11.3% to an all-time high of $1.41 billion over $1.26 billion the year before.
“In total, the numbers support the continuing quality and success of the Canadian production industry at home and internationally over the past ten years,” said CMPA president and CEO Michael Hennessy, in the report’s news release. “However, because there was such a sharp decline last year in independent television production, we need to determine the causes and find remedies for the decline.”
Hennessy added that Canadian film and television production generated $3.5 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the Canadian economy including $1.4 billion in production-industry GDP and over $2 billion in spin-off GDP.
