The Economic Impact of the UK Film Industry - BFI - British Film ...

Economic Contribution of the UK Film Industry
July 2007
product to market. Additional costs include information technology and administration systems to keep
track of videos rented, and a significant amount of shop space to keep a wide selection of videos
available.
Deducting one-quarter of revenues, and using the 17% share for UK films in rentals, implies that
additional merchandise rental sales from UK films amounted to about £45 million in 2006.
Taken together, the combination of both retail and rental of DVDs of UK films generated sales of £180
million in 2006. In terms of value added, this implies a contribution to UK GDP of around £130 million,
and the activity associated with this is estimated to have employed around 3,500 people.
9.2. Soundtracks
Sales of original-film soundtracks make up a relatively small part of the market for recorded music. But
since the overall retail market was worth around £1.8 billion in 2006 40 , this still amounts to an appreciable
level of spending.
The bpi estimates that soundtracks made up 1.6% of all album sales in 2006, and (assuming the average
price is similar for film soundtracks as for other albums) this amounts to £29 million worth of sales. A
share for the core UK film industry of 19% (in line with its share of DVD sales) would imply sales of UK
film soundtracks worth £5.5 million.
9.3. Books
There are a number of ways in which book sales can be influenced by films. In many cases, of course,
films retell the story of a book, providing an immediate link between the two media, with obvious examples
among recent major films including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on the CS Lewis Narnia
story; The Lord of the Rings trilogy, based on the books by JRR Tolkein; and the Harry Potter series,
based on the novels of JK Rowling. In these sorts of cases, the films have almost certainly inspired
additional sales of the books. But they were already very successful books in their own right and, indeed,
the success of the books contributed to the success of the films, not just vice versa. In other cases, the
impact of a film release can more obviously be seen as responsible for sales of a book - for example, the
Merchant-Ivory films of the EM Forster novels A Passage to India, A Room with a View and Howard’s
End; or, possibly, the recent film of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
More obviously within the scope of merchandising, though, are books spun off from the film itself, rather
than the original novel. These would include books about the making of the film, using cartoon characters
from the film, telling additional stories about the characters in the film, etc.
40 Source: IFPI.
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