Five creative industries in New Zealand contributed nearly $4 billion to our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) last year according to a report by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC).
The five creative industries are film, TV, music, books and computer games. Film and TV together contributed 74% of this money. Films made last year included drama, comedy, Sci Fi, feature films like The Dark Horse, and a number of documentaries which were shown during the International Film Festival this year. TV makes a few New Zealand movies, often a series, and many other local programmes each year.
New Zealand music contributed 12% of the money from the five creative industries, book publishing 8% and games 6%. Most of us know about Lorde but we have many other musicians including Sol3Mio, a Samoan trio living in New Zealand.
Although New Zealand book publishing has decreased, we still publish some New Zealand adult and children’s books, fiction and non-fiction. Physical book sales are still ahead of e-books and on-line sales in New Zealand.
The video games industry is New Zealand’s fastest-growing ICT export industry. It has grown from $20m to $80 million in 4 years.
The report showed that these five creative industries contributed $1.742m to our GDP directly but indirectly nearly $4 billion. 20,000 people are employed directly in these industries but many more are employed indirectly. Indirect benefits of these industries include employment in sales, advertising, distribution, cinemas, radio and TV, but also supplying equipment, especially for the film industry.
The report did not include other creative industries such as art, dance, or theatre.
Vocabulary
• GDP – total value of all goods and services, value of the economy
• Sci Fi – Science Fiction
• physical books – books you can hold in your hand
• ICT – Information and Communications Technology
• distribution – e.g. by truck, post or courier
Questions
1. Are there surprises in this report?
2. Why did the organisation WeCreate want this report?
3. Can you add to the lists of recent New Zealand films, TV shows, music, books and games?