Film in the UK, 2001–10: A Statistical Overview

Abstract

It is 66 years since the peak of British cinema-going, when 1.6 billion tickets were sold – the equivalent of approximately 36 cinema visits per person per year. Of course, back in 1946 the cinema was the only place in which the British public could watch feature films. Television was still in its infancy (the limited London service was reintroduced that year following its wartime hiatus) and the first trials of videotape recording at the BBC were another six years away. Both television and the VCR had a huge impact on cinema-going in the years that followed, and yet the level of feature film consumption per capita is now much higher than it was in cinema’s heyday. In 2010, UK audiences watched feature films on 4.6 billion occasions, the equivalent of approximately 81 films per person (BFI 2011a). The technological shifts of the last ten years mean that UK audiences are now faced with a far more complex multi-platform world of digital film consumption and they can experience film through DVD and Blu-ray, on free-to-air and pay television, online, on mobile devices and of course at the cinema, which remains the crucial first step in the life cycle of a film. Of the 81 films watched annually per person, 64 are on TV, thirteen on DVD/Blu-ray, three at the cinema and only one through the nascent video-on-demand (VoD) platforms. Film is both a vital cultural activity for the people of the UK and an industry with a highly skilled workforce that contributes significantly to the British economy. This article assesses the transformation in