Cinema production from the US clearly dominates in our European cinemas. It is a fact demonstrated by the official statistics, but for any man it is sufficient to look at the program of the local multiplex or multiscreen cinema. How is EU struggling with this state of affairs? And is this fight is succesfull and effective? These questions will be the theme of this article that examines the effectiveness of the MEDIA Programme on the occasion of its 20th anniversary.
In 2011 a process that can simply be called „the fight to the last euro“ began fully on the European level. Yes again it is time for the approval of the next financial framework, which will be determined at the European level and will set the basic constraints of all EU policies. We are, however, not going to be looking into the near future and engage in heated discussions and arguments on the "importance" of the budget increase, or find new basis of legitimacy of some items in the budget. Instead we'll look at one of the areas, which, according to the European Commission, are unlike other areas safe from any budget cuts. Is it a sensitive area of the MEDIA program, which is by some commentators showcased as a successful model of support at European level, while others decry it as an ineffective tool that creates „artificially“ European dimensions where there are only more or less fragmented national film industries. What has the first debate about the possible abolition of the MEDIA program shown is that the sides of the barricades in favor of the activities of this programme is not only much louder, but also more numerous. This mounted pressure of the filmmaking community was succesfull in gaining of a rare promise from the European Commission long before there were clear specifications of its final proposal. (Update note: the proposal of the next MEDIA program was already published on the 24. Novemeber 2011)
MEDIA Programme - 20 year tradition of support for cinema at EU level
Each of the programming periods of the MEDIA programme during its 20 years of existence (yes this program is here with us since 1991) was based on fulfilling various objectives and the main one was literally to fight the cultural dominance of American cinema by strengthening the position of European cinema for a variety of distribution platforms, especially in cinemas. Of course, it also tried to be beneficial to other areas (development of audiovisual works, education of professionals, etc.). But the real goal was always to undermine the dominance of culture from across the Atlantic ocean, which is still best articulated through its share in cinema attendance. And so I think that after 20 years it is time to examine how effective is this program in fulfilling one of its primary objective, which is also part of the current financial framework for the years 2007 to 2013 in the MEDIA 2007 programme "increase the circulation and share of European audiovisual works within the European Union and beyond."
MEDIA - How much does it cost us?
However before we try to answer this basic question, it is neccessary to look at the budget barriers which defined the MEDIA programme throughout its duration. In absolute terms, according to interim and final evaluation reports of the program, the average annual budget for each year of the program clearly increased by 22 respectively 23 mil. eur. per year (see table nr. 1 which provides the overall evolution of the funding). The yearly average amounts in various programing periods were as follows: period 1991 - 1995 (40 mil. eur per year) from 1996 to 2000 (62 mil. per year / an increase of 55%) from 2001 to 2006 (85 mil. eur / increase of 37%) and 2007 - 2013 (108 mil. eur / increase of 27%). Compared with the first budget period there has been in the current programming period an increase in annual average amount of support by staggerring 170% (not including inflation). And as shown above in the next programing period the European Commission ruled out a reduction of the budget for the MEDIA Programme. In the words of Emanuel Baroso, European Commission President "There were some reports that the European Commission had intended to reduce it (MEDIA programme budget, note of the author), which is totally inaccurate. On the contrary, if something is considered in relation to this programme, is its strengtening, at least that's what I'm going to propose." Regardless of the final approved budget for this area (update note: the proposal – but still just a proposal - of the commission for the whole Creative Europe programme as revealed in November 2011 is 1,8 billion eur, that is an increase of 37 %, but this amount is for the whole creative and cultural sector, out of which 55 % should be for MEDIA, that is 990 mil., that translates to an budget increase compared to the previous programing period of 31 %) it therefore seems that European cinema professionals do not have to worry about anything.
Programme | MEDIA I | MEDIA II | MEDIAPlus | MEDIA 2007 | Creative Europe MEDIA (proposal) |
Period | 91 - 95 | 96-00 | 01-06 | 07-13 | 04-20 |
Budget / period mil. eur | 200 | 310 | 513 | 755 | 990 |
Budget / yearly mil. eur | 40 | 62 | 85 | 108 | 141 |
Increase of yearly budget mil. eur | - | 22 | 23 | 23 | 33 |
Increase of whole budget % | - | 55% | 66% | 47% | 31% |
Increase of yearly budget % | - | 55% | 37% | 27% | 31% |
Table Nr. 1: the evolution of the budget of the MEDIA programme 1991 - 2020, sources of data for the overal budgets (Decisions of the Council on the various programme periods, interim and final reports on the programmes, for the recent period the communication on Creative Europe programme)
Nevertheless when examining the annual amount of aid it is necessary to take into account the gradual increase in the number of countries participating in the program and the associated extending of population, which are supposed to be efectivly targeted by the program (see table nr. 2 providing information about the evolution of the per capita support). For these reasons, although the absolute amount of support has been clearly rising, the ratio of aid per capita, despite the steady increase between 1991 and 2003 (support spending increased from 0.1 eur / per capita to 0.2 eur / per capita), has subsequently stabilized at the level of the year 2003. Therefore effectively, mainly due to the big EU enlargement in 2004 and 2007 the rise in support came to a halt, as the redistribution between higher numbers of countries was necessary.
Year | Number of MEDIA memeber states | Population in participating countries | Support per capita | |
MEDIA I | 1991 | 15 | 381 | 0,11 |
1992 | 15 | 381 | 0,11 | |
1993 | 15 | 381 | 0,11 | |
1994 | 15 | 381 | 0,11 | |
1995 | 18 | 404 | 0,10 | |
MEDIA II | 1996 | 18 | 404 | 0,15 |
1997 | 18 | 404 | 0,15 | |
1998 | 18 | 404 | 0,15 | |
1999 | 18 | 404 | 0,16 | |
2000 | 18 | 404 | 0,17 | |
MEDIA Plus+training | 2001 | 18 | 404 | 0,17 |
2002 | 18 | 404 | 0,17 | |
2003 | 18 | 404 | 0,20 | |
2004 | 28 | 479 | 0,20 | |
2005 | 28 | 479 | 0,19 | |
2006 | 29 | 486 | 0,23 | |
MEDIA 2007 | 2007 | 31 | 515 | 0,16 |
2008 | 31 | 515 | 0,20 | |
2009 | 31 | 515 | 0,21 | |
Average | 0,16 |
Table nr. 2: evolution of yearly per capita public funding of the MEDIA programme Sources: interim and final evaluations of programmes and the actual sums allocated in the current programming period
MEDIA – an effective tool for dismantling of American dominance in European cinemas?
After we have defined effective budgetary limits of the MEDIA programme we can look at its impact on the indicator of the proportion of European works in cinemas. In this context, it is first necessary to mention that the MEDIA program is primarily focused on non-national European film productions (films from other European countries than from their native country). However the main objective of the program focuses on European works in the EU in general and therefore we will examine three main indicators: the share of U.S. woks, the share of European works as a whole and the share of European non-national works in European cinemas throughout the duration of the MEDIA Programme. On this basis, we can assess how effectively the program actually manages to fight against heavy competition, which has been crushing the European cinema already for decades.
American dominance
The statistical information is generally especially from the economical perspective of European cinema very hard to find and the only relevant source of data at European level is the European Audiovisual Observatory. There is also no long-term analysis of attendance in cinemas. Therefore, when we want to examine this indicator we have to rely on the publication "Trends in the cinema market," which has been issued since 1997 on the occasion of the Cannes Film Festival and is the only freely available publication of this kind to the public. The aggregated data shows that U.S. dominance in European cinema is not only unambiguous but also extremely stable and is oscillating on average level of 71.1% (see table nr. 3). Except for two cases (years 1998 and 2001) variations were never higher than 2.1 percentage points. This reflects the inability of the MEDIA program to more or less effective influence the clear dominance of U.S. productions, and that despite all the positive reflections on the function of the MEDIA programme of most leaders as well as evaluation studies, that are being carried out in this area regularly.
US+EUR inc USA | European films | Others | |||
Year | Share % | Difference average share | Share % | Difference average share | |
2009 | 71,3 | 0,2 | 26,7 | 0,1 | 2,0 |
2008 | 70,0 | -1,1 | 28,4 | 1,8 | 1,6 |
2007 | 69,0 | -2,1 | 28,8 | 2,2 | 2,2 |
2006 | 69,7 | -1,4 | 27,6 | 1,0 | 2,7 |
2005 | 73,2 | 2,1 | 24,6 | -2,0 | 2,2 |
2004 | 71,4 | 0,3 | 26,5 | -0,1 | 2,1 |
2003 | 72,1 | 1,0 | 25,7 | -0,9 | 2,2 |
2002 | 71,2 | 0,1 | 27,4 | 0,8 | 1,3 |
2001 | 65,4 | -5,7 | 31,1 | 4,5 | 3,5 |
2000 | 73,0 | 1,9 | 23,2 | -3,4 | 3,8 |
1999 | 71,0 | -0,1 | 28,0 | 1,4 | 1,0 |
1998 | 77,4 | 6,3 | 18,8 | -7,8 | 3,8 |
1997 | 70,4 | -0,7 | 28,0 | 1,4 | 1,6 |
1996 | 70,2 | -0,9 | 27,4 | 0,8 | 2,4 |
Average | 71,1 | 26,6 | 2,3 | ||
Table nr. 3: The evolution of US, European shares in cinemas in Europe, sources Focus: film market trends publications from examined periods
The European response?
As the shares of European and American productions are strongly connected (when there is a strong year in terms of attractive American titles, the European share will certainly be decreased) it is possible to observe in the case of European shares only minimal deviations from the annual average of 26.6% of total tickets sold. Although it is possible to observe a positive trend for the last 4 years as the values are above the average value, but this is never more than 2.2% (see table nr. 3). In this context the look at the results of the year 1998 is especially tragic. In this year European films achieved the worst results since 1996 at the rate of only 18.8%, the lowest value for the entire period from 1996 - 2009. Effectively therefore, the following applies: MEDIA was able to stabilize the share of European works in cinemas, but almost certainly does not achieve one of its basic goals: "to increase circulation and viewership of European audiovisual works within the European Union."
Non-national films key to the success of European production?
The most effective mirror of the results of MEDIA programme is of course the development of the non-national European films share in cinemas in the EU, since the improvement of this indicator is beeing targeted by this programme. Due to the unavailability of data in this area (I found only data on this indicator for the period from 1996 to 2004) we have to look at the partial information with caution, but even from this limited sample it is obvious that non-national films reached on average only 8.5% of the total share of traffic in theaters (see table nr. 4), and actually the last years for which data is available are the worst and the share of non-national films dropped below 6.4%. In the remaining period, we can use to illustrate the further development by the share of U.S. films, at the expense of which would the potential increase of the share of non-national films be created. This indicator is however, as we have described above (see also table nr. 3), characterized by unprecedented stability and throughout the remainder of the period after 2004 the share of US works has been reduced only averagely only by 0.7%.
1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | Average | |
US Films | 71,6% | 67,0% | 77,5% | 69,2% | 73,3% | 65,4% | 71,2% | 72,0% | 71,4% | 71,0% |
Share national E. productions | 17,1% | 21,3% | 14,4% | 17,5% | 15,7% | 20,1% | 19,5% | 19,4% | 20,1% | 18,3% |
Share non-national E. productions | 8,8% | 10,7% | 7,1% | 11,3% | 7,2% | 11,0% | 7,9% | 6,3% | 6,4% | 8,5% |
Others | 2,6% | 1,1% | 1,1% | 2,0% | 3,8% | 3,5% | 1,3% | 2,2% | 2,1% | 2,2% |
MEDIA programme – What can be done?
In a situation where the above mentioned results clearly show that European cinema is unable to fight with the dominance of the competition from behind the Atlantic Ocean, the justification for the existence of the MEDIA programme has never been stronger. As the analysis shows the amount of aid per capita on the level of 0.2 euro is more than sufficient to stabilize, but not at all to effectively fight for a better visibility of European cinema. The programme lacks a greater focus on real results, and of course cannot really force the viewers to spend their time and money on the European cinema. This can only by achieved by a varied and high-quality offer of films and audiences willing to accept that European films tend to have a greater ambition than to just entertain.
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