Growing the Audience of Today and Tomorrow:

Education. Access. Choice.

Background Information

• Today, the average British person watches over 80 films per year on big and small screens.

• Film makes a vital contribution to the UK’s economy of £4.2bn a year and is a key part of its cultural life.

• Growing/developing the audience for film throughout the UK, across all platforms, remains an important policy objective in the digital era.

Main Problems

• Despite the success of some high-profile British films, the audience across the UK still gets to see too few British films, especially independent British films and too few films from the rest of the world apart from ever popular Hollywood blockbusters.

Facts/Figures

• This is reflected in the low market share of independent British films at the box-office –(averaged 5.5 per cent between 2001-2010,) while the average share of foreign-language films was 3 percent.

Film Education

• Film education has a vital role to play in ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to engage with film across the UK.

• By enhancing the stock of knowledge about film, (in particular among children and young people) film education can assist in growing the audience of the future, ensuring that audiences have an improved understanding and appreciation of the value of different kinds of film.

• Film education will also stimulate creativity.

Audiences

• Audiences have “imperfect information” about the full range of films available at the cinema because the high costs of effective marketing and promotion puts smaller companies at a disadvantage.

• “...there may be difficulties for independent distributors in securing access to, or prominence on, some major platforms in the emerging digital download and streaming market.”

56 Recommendations

• This is why the Panel put the audience at the heart of its work, and developed a series of recommendations which are intended to increase audience choice across the UK.