A very significant Report has just been published by the BFI -- Screen Business: How screen sector tax reliefs power economic growth across the UK (October 2018).
Here is the summary Report:
It brings up to date some of the information I provided in an earlier blog post:
High-end television (HETV) - including fantasy series Game Of Thrones and royal period drama The Crown - claimed £179.4 million of tax relief to generate £1.72 billion in 2016, yielding £466.1 million in tax revenues. It generated 13,090 direct FTEs in 2016 and total employment of 26,670 FTEs when indirect and induced impacts are included. Across the screen sector value chain, HETV production generated £1.45 billion in total GVA for the UK economy. Tourism is a strong element of spillover impacts for HETV productions generating an additional 5,990 FTEs and £267.8 million in “gross value added" for the economy, and bringing the overall economic contribution of HETV to 32,660 FTEs and £1.72 billion in GVA.
Outlander: a programme that has been credited with bringing about £300m of direct investment to Scotland and great indirect effects including increased tourism spend. The Glenfinnan Monument to the fallen Jacobite clansmen saw a 58% increase in visitor numbers last year, reaching nearly 400,000. Nearby is another film tourism opportunity - the Glenfinnan Viaduct, made famous by the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films. Doune Castle, which features in the series as the fictional Castle Leoch, has seen a 227 per cent increase in numbers since 2013 when Outlander first aired.
Game of Thrones: over six series direct investment in the N Ireland economy was £146m — representing a significant payback when set against the investment of £13.7m from N Ireland Screen. The figures show that 120,000 visitors were drawn to Northern Ireland by the series in 2016, pumping a whopping £30million into the local economy. The Game of Thrones doors dotted around Northern Ireland have been a huge attraction and The Game of Thrones® tapestry welcomed more than 130,000 visitors between July 2017 and July 2018. Also a boost in the property market. 25 new Game of Thrones private sector visitor experiences were developed between 2013 and 2017, including guided coach tours, immersive experiences, food experiences etc. In the public sector, Tourism NI in partnership with Northern Ireland Screen and HBO hosted ‘Game of Thrones: The Exhibition' in 2013 and again in 2014. The exhibitions were sold out with the 2014 exhibition generating an estimated £735,000 in direct spend.
Poldark: Poldark is reported to have influenced around 14 per cent of all visitors to Cornwall, and businesses have long reported a boost in the number of tourists from overseas because of the so-called ‘Poldark effect’. Increased property searches and a boost to property values. Bristol attracted £15.2m of inward investment from film and TV production in 2017-18, according to the Bristol Film Office.
https://uk.businessesforsale.com/uk/search/hotels-and-holiday-accommodation-businesses-for-sale/articles/poldark-power-from-tv-to-tourism
Kaye Elliott, Creative England, 2018: ‘When a production like Poldark comes to town, they can spend up to £32,000 per day in the region, on things like hotels, food, transport and hiring local crew. Over the last year, filming has brought £11million of inward investment from on location spend into the South West – and that’s before you consider the impact of tourists visiting their favourite film locations.’
Kaye Elliott, Creative England, 2018: ‘When a production like Poldark comes to town, they can spend up to £32,000 per day in the region, on things like hotels, food, transport and hiring local crew. Over the last year, filming has brought £11million of inward investment from on location spend into the South West – and that’s before you consider the impact of tourists visiting their favourite film locations.’
Pride and Prejudice: Lyme Park in Disley, Cheshire, which starred as Jane Austen’s Pemberley in the BBC’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, enjoyed a 176 per cent increase in visitor numbers after the series aired in 1995.
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COMMENT
If you are looking at economic impacts, high-end TV drama is the thing to go for.
This is from just a few days ago:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/keeping-faith-second-series
Welsh Government Economy Secretary, Ken Skates says: “We are working extremely hard to continue to attract high-end TV and film productions to Wales, and to ensure we maximise the associated economic benefits. The last two years have been our busiest yet for supporting TV and film - with high profile productions such as Un Bore Mercher / Keeping Faith cementing Wales’ reputation as a five star place to film.”
Here is another quote:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/how-wales-built-itself-film-14387598
Speaking on St David’s Day 2018, Wales’ Economy Secretary Ken Skates said latest figures indicated that productions filmed in Wales with Welsh Government assistance will result in around an estimated additional £55m being injected into Wales’s economy in 2017/18, continuing an upward trajectory for the sector. He said the Welsh Government had taken “a conscious decision to grow our creative sector” and was “working hard to attract high-end TV and film productions to Wales”.
He said that for every £1 the Welsh Government invests into TV and film production, an average of £8 ends up being spent within the Welsh economy.
Now that's all very fine, and it's great that Keeping Faith is going into a second series, but when you actually look at the high-end TV dramas filmed in Wales over the past few years, not one of them tells a story set in Wales. Series like Da Vinci's Demons and His Dark Materials are great for the Welsh film and TV industry, and bring jobs and cash into Wales, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with the Welsh experience, the character of Wales, or the Welsh narrative, and so they do nothing to enhance our national identity, or our national pride -- and they do nothing whatsoever to sell Wales to the World.
Speaking on St David’s Day 2018, Wales’ Economy Secretary Ken Skates said latest figures indicated that productions filmed in Wales with Welsh Government assistance will result in around an estimated additional £55m being injected into Wales’s economy in 2017/18, continuing an upward trajectory for the sector. He said the Welsh Government had taken “a conscious decision to grow our creative sector” and was “working hard to attract high-end TV and film productions to Wales”.
He said that for every £1 the Welsh Government invests into TV and film production, an average of £8 ends up being spent within the Welsh economy.
Now that's all very fine, and it's great that Keeping Faith is going into a second series, but when you actually look at the high-end TV dramas filmed in Wales over the past few years, not one of them tells a story set in Wales. Series like Da Vinci's Demons and His Dark Materials are great for the Welsh film and TV industry, and bring jobs and cash into Wales, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with the Welsh experience, the character of Wales, or the Welsh narrative, and so they do nothing to enhance our national identity, or our national pride -- and they do nothing whatsoever to sell Wales to the World.
The strategy seems to be to make Wales a "five star place to film" -- in other words, a great place to tell other people's stories. Are we really, as a proud nation, content with that? Have we learned nothing at all from Game of Thrones, Poldark, and Outlander?
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