News

Australian films reach 101m viewings

Screen Australia has found that the 100 Australian films released between 2007 and 2009 have reached an audience of “around 101 million viewings”.

“I strongly believe in evidence-based policy making and this research will be a vital component of Screen Australia’s submission to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s  Convergence Review,” said CEO Ruth Harley.

The agency has released a new report entitled Beyond the box office: understanding audiences in a multiscreen world, which reveals the new standardised metric used to evaluate “the number of times content is viewed across its first release life cycle”, as well as patterns of screen media consumption in Australia – including consumption of DVD/Blu-ray and online video.

There are five main findings:

1. The addition of new screens to old.

Television viewing (FTA and pay TV) has remained steady over the last five years while cinema and gaming have “slightly” increased. DVD/Blu-ray has fallen, but online video has offset the fall.

2. The ongoing strength of old screen activities should not be taken for granted.

Early adopters (young, innovative, interested in technology, with a “I can have it all” kind of mentality”) are driving change, with the highest participation rates across most screen activities. This group is less likely to be watching FTA than they were five years ago, so FTA is the sector with “the most to lose”.

3. Gross revenues tell a vital yet incomplete story about the performance of content, so measuring methods have to be adapted to their changing audiences.

Audience size needs to be considered alongside return on investment to ensure a more comprehensive understanding of performance. For Australian films, box office admissions account for less than 10 percent of all viewings.
4. Home entertainment is migrating away from physical discs to online, providing an opportunity to better monetise that market.

DVD/Blu-ray participation rates have dropped, but a large proportion of viewings still takes place through these formats, and the rental markets still has the largest share of viewings for films released in the country. Although the rental platform “has typically offered low distribution returns”, new opportunities are likely to emerge for revenue sharing with online aggregators.

5. The ubiquitous nature of television enables Australian films to be seen by more people in more areas across the country.

Box office is considered he key determinant of downstream performance for Australian films. Although this is true for DVD/Blu-ray and online, television presents a different situation, where “below-average” grossing films perform “far better on television than their theatrical release would indicate”.

The report is available here.

Screen Australia will now host Beyond the Box Office forums in Sydney and Melbourne.

“[The forums] provide an opportunity to discuss and understand market penetration in a world in which the delivery mechanisms are converging around fast broadband, yet the access points are diverging,” said Harley.

Encore will report live from the Sydney event tonight.

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