UK TV sales up - but not in U.S.

While Jerry Springer is condescendingly stating that British TV is "10 years behind American television", it seems that Brit telly is doing very nicely around the globe, thank you very much. New figures compiled by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Pact, the independent producers' trade body, state that, overall, UK TV exports rose 6% in 2004, to hit £534m, or nearly $1 billion. (Here's the original pact press release, which also includes a downloadable PDF file with information on UK TV Export figures). The United States is of course hugely important for UK producers, with four dollars in every ten being made through U.S. sales. DVD sales are increasingly important, leaping 25% in a year. Media Guardian notes that the U.S. "was by far the biggest foreign market for DVDs of British TV shows, accounting for £62m of total sales." However, there is some bad news. The report notes that, although North America still accounts for about 40% of all UK media export revenue – some $418m in 2004 - "sales to North America posted an overall 5% decline over 2003 figures." So take away the DVD sales and there's a significant weakening in the U.S. market. Is this just a function of the weak dollar, or is something else going on?


Addendum: It's worth noting a a previous Pact press release, from February, that focuses on another report, by the Television Research Partnership (TRP), suggesting that "the UK is the world leader in the creation and distribution of international TV formats" - something we've talked about before in this blog. According to the report:

Titles like Pop Idol, Changing Rooms, The Alphabet Game, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, The Weakest Link, and Ready, Steady, Cook, have helped UK TV companies secure a dominant 45% share of the international TV format market by hours and a 49% share by the number of titles across the channels studied.

According to the report, the format of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire alone has been licensed or optioned to 107 countries. And on TV channels in the US, Canada, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands, formats from the UK were more numerous and accounted for more hours than formats from any other exporter.

However, the more recent Pact report states that revenues from format sales and co-productions are down compared to 2003 (when they increased). Pact argues that this is because

UK formats rights holders are increasingly taking on the production responsibility of formats in other territories around the world, as opposed to just licensing the rights to an overseas broadcaster or co-producing them with a local production company. In these instances, revenue is counted by companies as production income and not as sales revenue – from which the exports statistics are compiled.

British companies that produce their own overseas versions of formats include Fremantle Media, TWI, RDF, and The Television Corporation.