'Skyfall' and 'The Woman in Black" Exhibition, consumption and Exchange

Use the following to develop your awareness and knowledge of the UK film industry in 2012 - the year both 'Skyfall' and 'The Woman in Black' were released.

BFI Statistical Yearbook 2013 (covers 2012 figures for distribution and exhibition) 

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BFI Statistical Yearbook 2014 (covers 2012 figures for exchange) 

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Exhibition = films being exhibited or 'shown'.

The number of screens in the UK continues to rise, although the number of screens per person and admissions per person vary considerably across the country. Complementing commercial cinema is a thriving voluntary sector in film exhibition, and film society admissions are highest in areas less well served by commercial cinemas.

EXHIBITION FACTS IN FOCUS:

• At the end of 2012, the UK had 3,817 screens, 50 more than 2011, in 769 cinemas.
• For the first time since 1984 the net increase in screens in traditional cinemas was greater than the net increase in multiplex screens.
• There were six screens for every 100,000 people, the same as in 2011, but lower than countries such as the USA (12.6), France (9.0), Australia (8.7), Spain (8.3) and Italy (6.4).
• Only 7% of screens were dedicated to specialised programming, with 0.2% dedicated mainly to South Asian films.
• More than 90% of all screens in the UK were equipped for digital projection.
• Membership of community cinemas
• and film societies continued to grow;
• the British Federation of Film Societies estimated a total membership of around 55,000 across all film societies, compared with 54,000 in the previous year.
• There were 584,000 admissions at more than 50 film festivals in the UK in 2012.
• The average ticket price at commercial cinemas was £6.37

Cinema screens by exhibitors with 20+ screens, 2012

  

Exhibitor                                                      Sites                Screens       % of total screens

Odeon	114	868	22.7
Cineworld	80	799	20.9
Vue	79	746	19.5
National Amusements	20	264	6.9
Empire Cinemas	16	150	3.9
Anderson	11	88	2.3
Reel Cinemas	16	63	1.7
Cineworld/City Screen	22	60	1.6
Movie House Cinemas	5	39	1.0
Merlin Cinemas	11	32	0.8
Others (21 major exhibitors and 329 independent single venue exhibitors)	395	708	18.5
Total	769	3,817	100.0

Technological change is transforming the shape of the creative industries at an extremely rapid pace. This presents both huge opportunities and challenges for the film sector. As John Adams, Professor of Film & Screen Media Practice at the University of Bristol, points out, “digital technologies create the possibility of a paradigm shift in the creative and commercial potential of film”. 

Films are already available on multiple platforms at users’ convenience. They carry an increasingly rich stream of metadata. Feature-length productions may still be the norm in cinemas but they are increasingly complemented by a wide array of other forms of moving images available via streaming sites. Transmedia storytelling, in which a narrative unfolds across different platforms, is becoming increasingly common. 

There is a strong public appetite to engage with film, not just as consumers, but as producers, curators and critics. The development of social media has been a powerful tool in this. Technological advances will allow faster access to audiences and more direct relationships between filmmakers and audiences; and analysts now believe that new devices that make it easier to watch internet video on television will accelerate the shift to on-demand movies. 

However, film needs to be able to compete with other content in the digital environment. According to the British Video Association, “the single biggest problem currently facing the film industry is falling revenues”. The challenge for the industry is to replace lost revenues from the collapsing DVD-based ownership model in a marketplace that is shifting away from physical media. Counterbalancing this is the huge opportunity presented by the digital revolution. The film industry is seeking revenue models to capitalise on what audiences are willing to pay for films (and related games, apps and other media).

Consumption = films being consumed ('watched') by an audience  

Exchange = how the audience then responds to these.

Understanding the audience is key to a vibrant film economy and culture. Surveys of the UK cinema audience provide us with an insight into one element of the film offer, but more research is needed on audience engagement with the full range of online experiences.

AUDIENCE FACTS IN FOCUS:

• In 2012, the proportion of over-45s in the UK cinema audience increased to 36% compared to 28% in 2011, while the 15-24 audience decreased from 31% to 25%.

Film on 'Physical' Video

Despite falling revenues, particularly in the rental market, physical video remains a crucial element of the film value chain. 

In 2013, feature film video sales and rentals in the UK generated just over £1.1 billion.

PHYSICAL VIDEO FACTS IN FOCUS:

• The combined sales and rental market for all categories of video on physical media in 2013 was more than £1.6 billion (over £1.4 billion in sales and £197 million from rentals); feature film on video accounted for just over £1.1 billion.
• There were 119 million sales of feature film on physical video
• (127 million in 2012) and 53 million rentals of film on video (78 million in 2012).
• Film accounted for 73% of the volume of the video sales market and 65% of the value. UK films accounted for around 24% of all films sold on video.
• The most popular purchase on both DVD and Blu-ray disc in 2013 was Skyfall.

Hardware

• According to the BVA, in 2013 some 3.3 million DVD players were sold in the UK. 
• Sales of DVD players have been decreasing each year since 2008 but over 60 million units have been sold in the UK in the last 10 years and, according to the BVA, over 90% of the population has access to a device that can play DVDs within the household. 
• Also, 1.2 million Blu-ray players were sold in 2013, one third of which were 3D players.
• Sales of Blu-ray players in 2013 were slightly lower than in 2012 (1.3 million units in 2012) but more than 5.5 million Blu-ray players have now been sold in the UK, and 21.2% of households own at least one player (compared with 17.6% in 2012).

Video on Demand 

Video on Demand (VoD) enables audiences to access films through a range of devices, anytime, anywhere. 

Revenues for online services were higher than television-based earnings for the second consecutive year in 2013, but our overall understanding of this market is hampered by a lack of robust data.

FACTS IN FOCUS:

• The total VoD film market was estimated to be worth £323 million in 2013, up 37% on 2012, and up over 400% since 2002
• Apple was the highest earning VoD provider in the UK, but YouTube is the most used provider to access feature film on VoD, with over 39% of online film viewers, followed by LOVEFiLM, with 25% of viewers and Netflix with 24%.
• 16% of online viewers access films on demand
• People can now watch film on demand wherever they are, as long as there is a 3G/4G hotspot or wireless router to connect their (mobile) devices to the web. 
• By the beginning of 2014, 84% of adults in the UK had access to the internet at home, and 53% of adults used a mobile phone to connect to the web. 
• In addition, 35% of households had a tablet or similar device, of which around half were 3G/4G enabled for mobile internet access.
• It is possible to gauge the potential audience for film on VoD content. In terms of television-based VoD providers, by the end of March 2014 approximately, 10.5 million Sky satellite subscribers, 3.8 million Virgin Media TV subscribers, 917,000 TalkTalk TV subscribers and 900,000 BT TV subscribers were able to access a range of on-demand services, including pay-per-view and catch up services. The potential audience for television-based VoD in the UK was estimated to be over 16 million.

Film on UK Television

In terms of viewer numbers, the single most important platform for film consumption is television. Viewers had a choice of almost 7,000 unique film titles across
all channels in 2013, and the cumulative film audience was just under 3.4 billion.

FACTS IN FOCUS:

• There were 6,941 unique film titles on television in 2013, including 1,800 on terrestrial channels, 1,324 on pay TV film channels and 3,817 on other digital channels.
• There were 1,990 film transmissions on terrestrial channels, down from 2,141 in 2012. Of these, 514 (26%) were UK films (up from 443 in 2012), 269 films (13%) were channel premieres and 47 (2%) were foreign language films (down from 71
• in 2012).
• There were over 57,000 film transmissions on multi-channel television, of which over 41,000 were on pay TV film channels.
• The top film at the UK box office in 2012, Skyfall, was the most popular film shown on pay TV channels in 2013, with a total audience of 4.9 million from 93 transmissions across the Sky Movies channels.