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Tim Wescott • Screen Digest

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Copyright Cartoon, the European Association of Animation Film Cartoon Master Barcelona, Spain, June 2006

Which are the most productive European countries in terms of animation?

Out of France, the most productive market in terms of television animation is Italy with 78 hours of animation produced in 2005. Italy is also the country with the highest increase of production. In 1997 Italy produced only 2 hours of animation a year. The public broadcaster, RAI, has been very pro-active in financing and producing animation in Italy.
UK produced 101 hours in 2004 and 76 hours in 2005. The UK production is quite stable over the last 5 years.
Spain produced 52 hours of animation in 2005. This figure might be under represented. There has been some decline because of the delocalisation of the productions outside Spain, primarily in Eastern Europe.
Germany produced 40 hours of animation in 2005. There is some kind of support of animation in Germany and a lot of support from public broadcasting, particularly ZDF.
France is the most productive market in terms of production of animation.

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How big is the French animation market?

The latest figures for 2005 show a very cyclical market. The production of animation in France is between 200 and 300 hours a year. All these programmes are financed by French broadcasters, French producers and international partners. The value of the animation industry in France was in 2005 just over €150 millions. This make France the first animation market in Europe.
The majority of the money comes from France itself. International funding, money from co-productions and distributors, represents about 40% of the investments.
Broadcasters have a legal requirement to invest part of their revenues in animation.
Producers themselves make a considerable investment in animation.
There are also others incentives, like tax incentive schemes.

What are the main support schemes for animation in Europe?

France has the largest support scheme in Europe, administrated by the Centre National de la Cinématographie. There are also many Regional funds, offered by local Regions or local Departments for animation development and some times for production.
German animation is financed mostly through the Regions, the Landers. The amount available for the production of animation in Germany is about EUR7 millions a year.
In Italy there is very little support for TV animation. There is a national scheme only for feature films.
In Spain there is a support coming from the autonomous Regions, including Catalonia, Galicia, the Basque Country and Andalusia.
In UK there is a very small amount of money for TV animation. There is a support only for feature film production.

How many animation films have been released in the top 5 European markets during the last years?

In the 5 big European countries we can see a very important progression of animation films released. In 2000 there was on 7 films released. In 2005 the films released have been 15. The amount of animation features film production has increased vastly in recent years. There are encouraging signs for certain European films: they are finding a market and they find the support they need. This is the case for Kirikou or Wallace and Gromit.

How many hours of animation are showed by the broadcasters per year?

One of the unique characteristic of animation is that broadcasters can repeat very regularly their shows. For example the number of original hours produced in UK is quite limited (some 85 hours produced), but the 5 terrestrial networks (BB1, BB2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) showed 1.600 hours of animation.
In France the situation is similar. The main 6 terrestrial televisions showed some 3.500 hours of animation.

What have been the recent developments in the animation market?

2005 has been a though year for sales of animation productions. Broadcasters have been filing the effects of more competition from the private commercial and digital televisions. The revenues are falling and broadcasters have the temptation to buy programmes from US or Japan or show archive material.
Animation is always under particular pressure, because it is a children genre and is not prime time. Most broadcasters will focus their financial resources in prime time programmes.
There are some underlying developments. European broadcasters do not looks only to US and Japan for animation. They are also prepared to support local animation. There are some successes in developing international profile for industry. For example the French series Totally Spies was very successful in UK.

What are the market trends for DVD and home video?

DVD and home video have been a very lucrative market for some producers in recent years. Big advances have been paid for DVD and home video rights. There are signs that the boom of DVD is over. Sales are falling and prices are also declining in the long term. DVD market is not disappearing but it is under pressure. People have too many channels in their home.
The main change affecting children programmes, particularly pre-school programming, has been the availability of thematic TV channels. If you have pre-school programmes in digital television all day, as a parent there is less incentive to buy a DVD than before.
Some large producers have launched their own entertainment labels and they are entering in the business to consumer market. Home entertainment can be in some cases a source of pre-production finance.
The DVD and home video software sales, shows that in US the pick happened in 2002 and there is a decline since then. In Europe the pick of software DVD sales happened in 2005.

How is evolving the licensing market?

The character licensing market is valued at USD27.7bn a year. US properties dominate with 60% of market, but an increasing number of properties which comes from outside the US.
Western Europe (USD25,4bn) is less than half the value of North America (USD70bn).
There are some investments available from toy companies in creation and production of animation TV and video programmes.
There are companies which have integrated both entertainment and merchandising into their activities. For example HIT Entertainment, before it went public it was a pure distributor. It is now a company which creates its own productions, publishes on DVD and video and also sells toy licences. In terms of annual revenues, a very small proportion of their revenues come from television production distribution.

How is evolving the new media market?

They are very promising markets. There will be a market for licensing characters, logos, ringtones on mobile telephones. It is less clear whether there will be a considerable market for licensing programmes to mobile. It is hard to see if people will want to watch programmes on their mobiles phone. Probably there will be specific programmes of 2 or 3 minutes specifically produced for mobile phones.
As the speed of broadband connection is increasing, it is easer to stream video. The business model is still unclear for this kind of content, because generally the content on the Net is free. Video-on-demand worked much successfully were people download programmes without paying for them, as a complementary service for the cable subscription.
Anyway Internet has emerged as an entertainment media where people will watch video and will consume content on line.

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