Creative Capital Report - Irish Film Board

Introduction
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Today there are in the region of 500 Irish-owned companies involved in a diverse range of
audiovisual content production activities mainly working on film, television, animation and
video content for all platforms. This level of production activity in turn produces further
substantial indirect employment in the Irish economy at a ratio of 1:1.25 according to IBEC 3
figures. A key feature of the industry is that production expenditure in Ireland is spread
throughout the country.
In a recent EU report on building the European digital economy it states that ‘Creative and
cultural industries are a powerful motor for jobs, growth, export earnings, cultural diversity
and social inclusion representing 4.5% of the total European GDP in 2008 and accounting for
3.8% of the workforce’ 4 .
The global market for creative audiovisual content is growing and is estimated to reach $1.7
trillion by 2013 and is projected to grow at a rate of 30% over the next five years 5 .
The opportunity and the challenge for the Irish industry is to build on the substantial progress
of the last 15 years into this global market.
The purpose of this report is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the Irish industry
and to recommend to government specific policies that will equip the industry to successfully
enter the next phase of its growth from a predominantly domestic platform into international
markets.
Just as clear government policy introduced in the 1993 legislation led to an overall increase of
ten times the number employed in the industry, so the policies recommended in this report
will underpin the next phase of growth for the next five years and should lead to an increase
in the numbers employed directly in the industry by an average of 8% per annum over the next
five years.
3 Film and Television Production in Ireland, IBEC, 2010
4 Building a Digital Economy: The importance of saving jobs in the EU’s creative industries, TERA Consultants, March 2010.
5 Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, 2010 – 2014, PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010.