Last Survey Shows Film And TV Industry Growth

The last release in the ONS series of UK film and television survey statistics was released on the 9 December 2008. The UK film and television industry increased its exports of all services to £2,836m in 2008. It is an increase of 23% on 2007. Imports increased from £1,956m in 2007 to £2,215m in 2008 giving a balance of £621m in 2008 compared to £347m in 2007. The film industry's net surplus was £494m and the television industry's surplus was £198m.

The biggest importer of UK exports of services in the US with £736m or 55% followed by Europe with £432m or 32% and the rest of the world with 13%. The biggest percentage of imports was from Europe with 46% with a value of £384m. Imports from the US totalled £111m or 13%.

Television industry exports amounted to £1,101m in 2008 from £855m in 2007 and imports increased to £903m from £983m in 2007. The resulting balance is a surplus of £198m compared with £62m in 2007. The biggest importer of TV services from the UK was Europe with 57% totalling £624m. The US increased its spend to £211m or 19%. The rest of the world imported 24% of UK exports.

Imports to the UK from the US accounted for 62% of the UK total at a value of £555m. There was a slight increase in the imports from Europe to £273m in 2008 from £261m in 2007. There was an 87% response rate to the survey.