The Canada Feature Film Fund A Look at The First Four Years

1
Audiences and Economic Indicators SPOTLIGHT ON
CANADIAN DOCUMENTARIES
Prepared for the Documentary Policy Advisory
Group
2
Canadian Documentaries

• Economic Indicators
• Recoupment
• Sales
• Branding
• Jobs
• Reaching Audiences
• Feature Film
• Non-Theatrical
• Television

3
Economic Indicators
4
Recoupment
A Proxy for Market Performance

• The Children Youth genre has the highest
  recoupment rate
• Documentaries have the lowest recoupment as a
  percentage of commitments

5
Recoupment
A Proxy for Market Performance

• The on-going series sub-format has the highest
  recoupment rate with almost 11 percent of the
  commitment amount
• Mini-series have the lowest recoupment rate

6
Sales
Total Sales for 35 Projects
Canadian Sales 30
Foreign Sales 70
7
Sales

• Of the 35 NFB and Telefilm projects, twenty-five
  were produced in English and ten were produced in
  French
• English-language projects had about 61 higher
  dollar-sales-per-project than the French-language
  productions

Average Sales per Project by Language of
Production
8
Sales
Total Canadian sales come from the market
segments of television, institutional, home video
and theatres. The most important market segment
is television representing 51 of all sales,
followed by 41 for the institutional market and
home video (direct sales to consumers or rentals)
accounting for the balance (7). The receipts
from the theatrical market are marginal
Canadian Sales by Market Segment (Overall)
51.4
41.3
7.0
0.3
TV
Institutional
Home Video
Theatre
9
Sales
Canadian Sales by Market Segment
(English-Language Productions)
For English-language productions, the market
segment distribution is similar to the total with
only slightly lower television representation and
slightly higher representation in the
institutional segment.
49.1
44.1
6.5
0.3
TV
Institutional
Home Video
Theatre
10
Sales
Canadian Sales by Market Segment (French-Language
Production)
French-language productions have a higher
distribution in the television segment than
English-language productions and in home video,
but have much smaller representation in
institutional.
59.0
32.6
8.3
0.1
TV
Institutional
Home Video
Theatre
11
Sales

• When total sales are broken down to the
  respective parts, PRE-SALES and SALES, the series
  sub-format proves to have the highest share of
  pre-sales (almost 70) whereas one-off
  documentaries have the lowest (just over a
  quarter).

12
Sales
Canadian Sales by Market Segment
Theatres 0.4
Home Video 10.7
Institutional 17.8
TV 34.8
Institutional 54.0
TV 82.2
Telefilm Canada The
National Film Board
13
Sales
Canadian vs. Foreign Sales by Documentary
Sub-format

• One-off documentaries get the highest share of
  their sales from the Canadian market
• On-going documentaries get a more significant
  part of their sales from foreign markets

18.8
81.3
SERIES
MINI-SERIES
32.6
67.4
38.6
61.4
ONE-OFF
Canadian
Foreign
14
Branding
An analysis of rates for 30 second spots as well
as cost-per-thousands among major Canadian
network show that they are valued much lower than
other popular prime time programs
15
Branding
Canadian specialty services place a higher
premium on the brand of documentary programming.
Of a sub-set of relevant specialty services, 21
percent of their advertising revenue is generated
by documentary. Only three percent is generated
on the conventional national networks.
16
Jobs

• The production of Canadian documentaries
  generated approximately 12,900 full-time
  equivalent jobs in 2003-2004
• The figures for 2003-2004 show a decrease from
  the previous year in terms of indirect jobs but
  the general trend shows that documentary
  production in Canada continues to be an important
  engine for the creation of Canadian jobs

Full Time Equivalent Jobs
17
Audiences and Economic Indicators SPOTLIGHT ON
CANADIAN DOCUMENTARIES
Prepared for the Documentary Policy Advisory
Group
18
Reaching Audiences
19
Feature Film
Trends
Documentary Box Office Number of Releases

• No doubt due to the popularity of Michael Moores
  Fahrenheit 9/11, an extreme jump in feature
  documentary box office occurred in 2004
• 2004 saw 25 million in box office receipts for
  documentaries. This represents an astounding 428
  increase.
• More documentary films were released in 2004 than
  in 2002 and 2003 combined

Documentary Box Office (000s)
Number of Documentary Films Released

30,000
70
25,000
60
20,000
50
40
15,000
30
10,000
20
5,000
10
0
0
2002
2003
2004

20
Feature Film
Trends

• Feature documentaries are remaining in theatres a
  lot longer than they use to
• Feature documentaries are increasing their screen
  longevity at the same time, fiction films are
  proving to have a shorter shelf life.

21
Feature Film
Canadian Documentaries

• Similar to overall documentary growth,
  Canadian-made feature documentaries exhibited a
  startling growth in box office for 2004
• In 2004, Canadian documentaries accounted for
  over 2 million dollars in box office sales
  compared to 145,000 for the previous year

22
Feature Film
Canadian Documentaries

• Canadian productions accounted for about 8
  percent of all documentary box office receipts
• Canadian feature documentaries are twice as
  successful in their respective market as Canadian
  fiction films are.

Canadian Feature Film Share By Genre -2004


8 (2,113,585)
4 (39,286,854)
Canadian share of
Canadian share of
all Feature
all Fiction Feature
Documentaries
Films


23
Feature Film

• The Top Five Documentaries in Canada Overall
• Fahrenheit 9 / 11 Released 2004 Total Box
  Office 18,242,989
• Bowling For Columbine Released 2002 Total Box
  Office 5,244,872
• Super Size Me Released 2004 Total Box Office
  2,064,476
• The Corporation Released 2004 Total Box
  Office 1,511,731
• NASCAR The Imax Experience Released 2004
  Total Box Office 1,225,625
• Fahrenheit 911 was the highest grossing feature
  documentary of all time
• The Corporation is a Canadian-produced
  documentary. It was the number one Canadian
  documentary as well as the second highest
  grossing Canadian-made film overall for 2004
• The highest grossing French-language Canadian
  documentary was Ce Quil Reste de Nous. It took
  seventh place overall with over 300,000 at the
  box office

24
Non-Theatrical

Non
-
Theatrical Markets

Up to the Early 1990s
-
Generalized


25
Non-Theatrical
Non-theatrical Market Early 1990s to Present -
Specialised
Multimedia
Home Video
Social
Business
Services
Industry
Agencies
Community
Health
Associations
Educational
Specialty
TV

26
Non-Theatrical

• Diversity and reach of the non-theatrical sector
• Diverse audiences are being reached at home, at
  the workplace and in the educational milieu
• Example The National Film Board
• Libraries - over the last five years - almost 1
  million documentaries in loans and rentals
• Educational milieu- almost 400,000 documentaries
  sold
• More research is required to measure this
  consumption in the future

27
Television
Overview

• Canadians consumed over 14 billion hours of
  television during the first half of the 2003-2004
  broadcast season
• Of all that viewing, a slim majority (52) was to
  foreign programming

Source BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26,
2003-2004 Broadcast Year
28
Television
Trends

• In both English and French markets, there have
  been significant increases in documentary
  programming AVAILABLILITY on television
• Despite the increase in availability, consumption
  has been relatively flat no increase at all in
  the English market, and a slight increase in the
  French market

Source CBC Research/Nielsen Media 1996-2003
Primetime
29
Television
Trends
Canadian Documentary Programming Supply vs.
Viewing (hours/week/person)

• There has been a steady growth in availability of
  Canadian documentaries in both languages.
• Except for an anomalous drop in 1996-97 in the
  French market, viewing levels increased along
  with supply.

English-Language
1996/97
1998/99
2000/01
2002/03
French-Language
1996/97
1998/99
2000/01
2002/03
Source CBC Research/Nielsen Media 1996-2003 All
Day Canadian share figure applied to
hours/week/person figures
30
Television
Recent Audience Indicators
Share of All TV Hours (Week 1-26 20032004
Season)

• Canadians consumed about 784 million hours of
  documentary programming during the first half of
  the 2003-2004 broadcast season
• This accounts for about six percent of all tuning

Docs

6


All Others
94
Source BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26,
2003-2004 Broadcast Year
31
Television
Recent Audience Indicators
Share of All TV Hours Tuned to Documentaries
(Week 1-26 20032004 Season)

• Due to the higher population and the larger
  selection of services, television consumption
  overall tends to be about twice to two-thirds
  higher for the English market than French
• The English market accounts for 68 of all
  documentary viewing compared to 32 for the
  French market this indicates that the language
  markets have an equal interest in documentaries

French
32
English
68
Source BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26,
2003-2004 Broadcast Year
32
Television
Recent Audience Indicators
Share of Documentary Programming Hours
tuned (Week 1-26 20032004 Season)

• Although overall foreign television programming
  is consumed more than Canadian-produced
  programming, in the case of documentary
  programming television viewers prefer home-grown
  products
• Canadian-produced documentaries account for more
  than two-thirds of all documentary tuning on
  television

Foreign
39
Canadian
61
Source BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26,
2003-2004 Broadcast Year
33
Television
Recent Audience Indicators
Sub-Format Share of all Viewing to

• The on-going series sub-format accounts for the
  majority of hours tuned to documentary
  programming
• However, the distribution of TUNING almost
  exactly matches the distribution of AVAILABILITY
  which suggests that the sub-formats are equally
  appealing to Canadians

Canadian Documentary Programming
Miniseries
One off
4
14
Series
82

Source BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26,
2003-2004 Broadcast Year
34
Television
Recent Audience Indicators

• CUMULATIVELY, on-going series account for the
  most viewing, but one-offs and mini-series tend
  to have higher SINGLE-VIEW AUDIENCES.The top five
  single-airing audiences for documentaries were
  all one-offs or mini-series.

Source BBM National Meter Service, Weeks 1-26,
2003-2004 Broadcast Year