Online movie distribution is one of the fastest-growing creative markets in Australia with consumers spending an additional $49 million on filmed entertainment subscriptions over four years, a national snapshot shows.
The 2011 Creative Economy Report Card from the Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), based at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), showed emerging markets including digital music, online entertainment, gaming and internet advertising had experienced significant growth since 2005.
The online movie subscription rental market rose to $53.8 million in 2009 from $4.7 million in 2005, an 11-fold increase over four years, the report showed.
The digital download market for filmed entertainment, meanwhile, increased six-fold in two years, with Australians spending $4.7 million in 2009 compared to $780,000 in 2007.
The report found digital recorded music grew to $64.7 million, an increase of 800 per cent in the four years to 2009.
And the internet advertising market had tripled to $1.1 billion in 2009 from $378.3 million in 2005.
CCI director Professor Stuart Cunningham said emerging segments had displayed strong growth rates at a time when much of the world economy was stagnant.
"These are remarkable rates of growth, especially when compared with the economy as a whole, which has been growing at around 3 per cent a year," he said.
"The thing to bear in mind is that this growth has taken place over the period encompassing the global financial crisis, which indicates the vibrancy of the creative sector.
"Australia's creative industries face numerous challenges but show some fundamental strengths and capacity for growth."
Other emerging market highlights in the report included:
• Mobile internet users more than doubled in the four years to 2009: numbers of subscribers reached 380,000 and spending on access hit $48.4 million
• Satellite TV nearly doubled its penetration to 1 in 5 households in four years
• The wireless games market tripled in two years to $145 million, while online gaming doubled over four years to $128.7 million
The Report Card showed continued overall growth in the creative economy sector, which employed almost half a million people and generated more than $30 billion a year in GDP.
The creative sector Report Card encompassed advertising and marketing, architecture, design and visual arts, film, TV and radio, music and performing arts, publishing, software and digital content.
Professor Cunningham said the nature of the sector was that it innovated rapidly, with new segments, markets and technologies emerging as existing ones matured, creating a highly active "leading edge".
"The resources boom naturally receives all the attention, but there are remarkable things happening in the creative economy too which deserve recognition and policy attention," he said.
According to the latest Report Card, the creative sector:
• Was worth $31.1 billion a year (in 2007/08)
• Employed 486,700 individuals, or 5.3 per cent of the workforce, in both the creative and other industries
• Operated 155,000 registered businesses, 60 per cent of which are sole trader enterprises
• Generated 7 per cent of Australians' income earnings
• Had displayed long-term growth rates of 5.8 per cent over the past 20 years, roughly twice those of the economy as a whole
• Reached almost every Australian every day of the year, making it the world's fifth biggest spenders on arts, entertainment and media
• Had a number of highly dynamic "leading edge" technologies and segments
"The Creative Economy is still humming along, despite the financial downturn - but there are areas where we can clearly lift our game," Professor Cunningham said.
"For example Australia earns $1.7 billion a year in creative exports - but we pay $3.8 billion in creative imports, leaving a trade deficit of $2.1 billion. This is mainly down to our very large imports of movies, software, music, games and other products.
"These imports play a fundamental role in our culture, but our inability to adopt the latest business models to develop international markets for our creative content and services is one of the main limitations facing the sector.
"Meanwhile, architecture is one sector of the creative economy that generates a trade surplus, and we earn quite a respectable income from TV rights."
Professor Cunningham said CCI would continue to issue the Creative Sector Report Card at regular intervals with a focus on different aspects of the creative economy each time.
The ARC Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) is helping to build a creative Australia through cutting edge research spanning the creative industries, media and communications, arts, cultural studies, law, information technology, education and business.
Read the Report Card here.
Media contacts:
Professor Stuart Cunningham, Director CCI, 0407 195 304, s.cunningham@qut.edu.au
Julian Cribb, CCI media inquiries, 0418 639 245
Stephanie Harrington, QUT media officer, 07 3138 1150 or stephanie.harrington@qut.edu.au
