“The box office strikes back”

by the print edition

The Economist, May 6th 2010

Once incidental to Hollywood’s fortunes, cinema is now the fastest-growing and most innovative part of the film business

SUMMER begins on May 7th, at least according to Hollywood's calendar. On that day “Iron Man 2” is due to be released in American and Asian cinemas (it appeared a week earlier in Europe, to take advantage of the May Day holiday). Like many modern blockbusters, the film trades on nostalgia. It is based on a comic-book series that began in the 1960s and even features a Russian baddie. This is appropriate, given the state of the film business. Technological progress and changes in tastes mean that Hollywood depends more and more on the old-fashioned practice of showing films in cinemas.

Film exhibition was until recently a humdrum business. The formula for success was simple: sell lots of tickets at the same price, then funnel punters past salty popcorn and fizzy drinks. Cinemas keep about half the price of a ticket and up to 90% of the money spent at concession stands. For film-makers, showing movies in cinemas was important not so much in its own right but as a means of drawing attention to a product, the most profitable incarnations of which would appear later. The real money was in home entertainment, especially sales of DVDs.

But now the pendulum is swinging back towards the box office. In 2009 global box-office revenues increased by 7.6%, but total revenue for the biggest Hollywood studios fell by 4.3%, “due to the collapse of consumer spending on DVDs”, according to Bernstein, a research firm.

Since 2005 North American box-office receipts have risen by 20% (see chart). Ticket sales grew strongly during the recession, as people sought a cheapish night out, and have not slowed. Box Office Mojo, which tracks films, estimates that box-office receipts this year are running at 6% above last year's level. Elsewhere cinema is healthier still. Ticket sales outside America and Canada have risen by 35% since 2005 and are now worth about two-thirds of the global total. A boom in multiplexes—that is, cinemas with at least eight screens—is unlocking latent demand. In 2006 Russians made a total of 89.5m visits to the cinema. Last year they made 132.3m. This is especially surprising in a country where the number of young people is falling.

Meanwhile revenues from DVDs, Blu-ray discs and digital copies of films together have fallen by 8% in America since 2005, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. That figure, which includes rentals and sales of such things as exercise videos, flatters Hollywood. Stephen Prough of Salem Partners, an investment bank, says DVD sales of new films fell by 17% between 2008 and 2009 alone. The main culprit, he says, is the emergence of cheap, convenient rental services such as Netflix and Redbox. Although the drop has been less steep elsewhere, people in other countries never bought many DVDs.

What is driving the cinema boom? The most obvious answer, for consumers, is the rise of three-dimensional films. Audiences have flocked to films like “Avatar”, a vaguely ecological fantasy, and “Alice in Wonderland”. In North America 3-D films drove almost all the growth in box-office receipts last year. Although the premium that cinemas charge for 3-D films has risen steeply from as little as $1 per ticket to $3 or more, consumers have not balked. “We still don't know how much they are willing to pay,” says David Passman, chief executive of Carmike, a cinema chain.

More important, though less visible, is the digitisation of cinema. The number of screens served by digital projectors worldwide rose from about 3,000 to 16,400 between 2006 and 2009, according to Screen Digest, a research firm. That primed the explosion in 3-D films: it is hard, though not impossible, to project a 3-D image using old-fashioned film. Digitisation has made it easier for multiplex owners to shuffle films around screens to cope with surges in demand. And satellite distribution is making it easier and cheaper for films to open simultaneously around the world.

Digitisation is a particular boon to IMAX, a Canadian firm that makes bigger, taller screens. Once associated with films of fish in natural-history museums, IMAX now offers its products to multiplexes (the first few rows of seats are sometimes removed to accommodate the bigger screens). For the past 18 months it has been converting two to three screens a week. This would have been almost impossible without digitisation. Its larger film size means it costs about $25,000 to make a single print of an IMAX film. The need to recoup such costs necessitated long film runs. Now that IMAX films can be delivered digitally for a few hundred dollars, they can be programmed more like ordinary films. Cinemas tend to charge 30-40% above the ordinary ticket price.

Name your price

Cinema-owners have long suspected that, by charging the same amount to see a $2m independent film and a $200m blockbuster, they were leaving money on the table. The response to 3-D films and IMAX proves that they were. Cinema is evolving from a commodity into a business that sells differentiated products at varied prices. The example of India suggests that there is room for further differentiation.

Multiplexes are rising in many Indian cities: Mumbai alone has added more than 75 screens in the past five years, says Anil Arjun, chief executive of Reliance MediaWorks. They appeal to, and are priced for, India's aspirant middle class. Fame, a cinema chain, charges an average of 141 rupees ($3.15) per ticket, in a country where daily income per person is just 120 rupees. Some cinemas have replaced rows of seats with widely spaced reclining chairs, with tray tables and waiter service. This model appears to be spreading to the West. Carmike has opened a cinema in Tennessee that serves alcohol and food, to great success. The draw seems to be not just comfortable seats, but the absence of teenagers.

Film-makers are adapting to these changes. India's new cinemas have given rise to “multiplex films”, focused on the concerns of affluent youngsters and with somewhat less singing and dancing than in standard Bollywood fare. Elsewhere the rise of 3-D and the super-sizing of screens are leading studios to focus on visual spectaculars. “French table dramas do not look much better on IMAX,” notes Julian Stanford, who manages that company's business in Europe and Africa. The growth of screens outside America also favours big action films: an explosion is an explosion, regardless of language.

The loser, as so often, is grown-up drama. In the past two years the big studios have shut or run down “specialty” divisions like Focus Features and Miramax (the latter may yet return, in a much depleted state, to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who founded it). Fans of such films are out of luck. They should certainly steer clear of cinemas this summer.

http://www.economist.com/node/16064077

'Gangnam Style' boosts South Korean brand by Simon Mundy

The Financial Times Limited 2012

October 8, 2012

 ‘Gangnam Style’ boosts South Korean brand

By Simon Mundy in Seoul

 

Psy, a portly 34-year-old rapper with a penchant for silly dances, brought central Seoul to a standstill last week as he gave a free concert for 80,000 adoring fans, including two renditions of his global hit “Gangnam Style”.

The municipal authorities willingly allowed the concert to take place outside the city hall, and blocked traffic in the surrounding streets: an unusual gesture that reflects the delight of South Korean public officials at the international success of the musician, whose real name is Park Jae-sang.

 “Gangnam Style” has become South Korea’s biggest musical export: it stands at number two in both the US and UK charts, and it has been watched on YouTube more than 406m times.

The phenomenon is particularly welcome for an outgoing government that has paid enormous attention to boosting South Korea’s standing in the eyes of the world. Since assuming the presidency in 2008, Lee Myung-bak has stressed the importance of developing the country’s “soft power” to a level befitting its economic heft. He established a permanent presidential council to “establish a national brand”, has increased spending on foreign aid and hosted a series of high-profile events including a G20 summit in 2010.

A viral pop hit was not part of the nation branding plan, but it is “very useful, very important”, says Ma Young-sam, ambassador for public diplomacy at the foreign ministry.

Psy’s hit is just the latest triumph for what has become known as the Hallyu, or “Korean wave”. Girls’ Generation, a nine-member “K-pop” group, has made inroads in the US with appearances at Madison Square Garden and on David Letterman’s The Late Show. Last month, Pieta became the first Korean film to win the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, while Shin Kyung-sook’s novel Please Look After Mother became a global bestseller this year.

“As foreigners pay more attention to the singers, slowly they develop a liking for Korea ... and if they like Korea, they will buy more Korean things. This is what we’re trying to promote,” Mr Ma says.

Big manufacturers are strongly represented on the presidential council on nation branding and many have a deep interest in its goal. Once known principally for such prosaic products as steel and cargo ships, South Korean companies are focusing increasingly on areas where a glamorous image is critical.

Samsung Electronics is in a two-way battle with Apple at the top end of the smartphone market, and sold up to 20m units of its Galaxy SIII phone in the past three months, analysts estimate. Hyundai is slowly working its way up the automotive value chain; one company insider says it is beginning to see its premium models as direct competitors for Audi and BMW.

For some companies the benefits are even more obvious. Amore Pacific, South Korea’s biggest cosmetics producer, is enjoying double-digit growth in China, where the “Made in Korea” brand commands premium prices. Kim Bong-hwan, executive director of the company, says that this is largely to do with the huge Chinese following for Korean music and television stars.

Jang Te-you, a producer of some of the most popular TV shows, attributes their popularity in other Asian countries to their mixing of conservative family values with depictions of sophisticated fashion and urban living – a blend well suited to new markets like Russia and South America, he says.

But some argue that broader social and economic problems are holding back the country’s creative industries. In a society where academic success is highly prized, around 80 per cent of young people go to university: a “waste of time” for creative talents who miss an opportunity to develop their skills, according to Kim Ki-duk, director of Pieta.

Like many other sectors in South Korea, the film industry is dominated by the vast chaebol conglomerates, making it difficult for independent film-makers to obtain funding or convince cinemas to screen their films, Mr Kim adds. “The whole film-making process, from production through distribution to sales, is dominated by the chaebol, which discourages fair competition.”

But Korea's turbulent history has given its arts a “dynamic power” that explain their growing popularity, says Ms Shin, the author of Please Look After Mother, which tells of an elderly rural woman who goes missing in 1970s Seoul, then at the height of its industrial boom.

“Korea doesn’t have abundant natural resources to use to grow the economy,” she says. “If you look into Korea closely, it has nothing to be proud of but Korean people.”

Additional reporting by Laeticia Ock

link: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d25f3586-1109-11e2-8d5f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz29VH03zM0

British fashion industry now worth nearly £21bn a year, report reveals

Imogen Fox

The Guardian, Wednesday 15 September 2010 20.55 BST

British fashion is not just about designer frocks; it is a serious business that contributes almost £21bn to the UK economy, according to the findings of a landmark report to be launched tomorrow on the eve of London Fashion Week.

The Value of the UK Fashion Industry report was commissioned by the British Fashion Council and seeks for the first time to quantify the true economic and social impact of the UK fashion industry.

The research highlights not only the direct impact of the fashion industry, including wholesale, retail and manufacturing, on the economy but also its effect on other industries including financial services and tourism.

Ed Vaizey, minister for creative industries who launched the report alongside Vince Cable, noted its significance and said that it "confirms British fashion's status as one of our most important creative industries".

Harold Tillman, chairman of the BFC, commented: "Fashion is a great British success story, [the research] underlines its true scope and economic impact."

The report, by economic consultants Oxford Economics, says the UK fashion industry is the largest employer of all the creative industries, directly employing 816,000 people. The industry is similar in size to food and drink services and generates more than twice as many jobs as real estate, and considerably more than telecommunications, car manufacturing and publishing put together.

Alexander Shulman, editor of British Vogue, said she thought the report was "a very intelligent idea".

"It's important to show how big a business fashion is," she said.

"The word fashion is considered a relatively narrow term which makes people think of something rarefied, enjoyable but possibly trivial. Over the past 10 years in Britain we've seen how much a part of people's lives fashion has become. The difference in the broad appeal of high fashion is tremendous thanks to collaborations with very high-end designers and the high street has become bigger and better."

Other fashion insiders hoped the report will lead to a higher level of respect for the industry. Paula Reed, style director at Grazia magazine, said: "For a long time people have underestimated fashion in terms if its importance to the wealth of the nation. The general attitude often seems to be that working in fashion isn't a real job – but it is in fact lots of people's 'real jobs'."

The report's unveiling is intended as a boost to London Fashion Week and its international standing. It notes that the event helps to build British fashion as a brand abroad which in turn has an impact on tourism, attracting visitors to the UK to shop or visit fashion exhibitions. A minimum estimate puts this tourism impact at a value of £98m in 2009.

Vaizey, who admits to being dubbed the minister for fashion, noted: "British Fashion has the talent, creativity and skills to rival anywhere in the world. Our new and established designers are internationally renowned for their unique vision at the cutting edge of this hugely important global industry."

Reed noted that "any recognition by the government helps our standing abroad. When Downing Street supports British fashion that hugely impresses foreign editors and buyers and encourages them to come to London Fashion Week. The more we can incentivise them to do that, and see for themselves the amazing talent here, the better."

Earlier in the week, internationally acclaimed designer Tom Ford, who launched his first eponymous womenswear collection in New York on Sunday, revealed that next season he would be moving his showrooms to London where his design studios already are. Having such a prestigious name in the city is expected to boost British fashion further.

However the report also found that there were still many challenges facing the fashion industry, including a lack of business skills among many smaller fashion businesses which contributes to a high level of labels folding in their infancy. It warns that growing competition from other international catwalks could challenge London Fashion Week's reputation as the most creative capital. It highlights the need to promote the best practise on sustainability and to encourage the growth of a UK manufacturing base.

"This is just the first step," noted Tillman. "I am committed to driving this forward and to ensuring that we come together as an industry to work with government to discuss forthcoming challenges and agree the support required to overcome them."

Big business

• The direct value of the fashion industry to the UK economy is £21bn Indirect 'spill over' effects ranging from IT to tourism puts fashions total contribution at £37bn. • Fashion employs 816,000 people directly making 2.8% of total employment in the UK

•The fashion industry's contribution – directly and indirectly – to UK GDP is estimated at £37.2bn in 2009. Of this £20.9bn is due directly to retail, wholesale and manufacture.

• In 2008 consumers spent £46bn on clothes and shoes alone (not counting make up, glossy magazines and other related purchases)

•London fashion week makes £20m a year for the capital and draws in orders of £100 million

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/15/british-fashion-industry-report-business

“Trade group says economic uncertainty causing companies to pull back on business travel” by Samantha Bomkamp (The Associated Press )

The Washington Post, October 9, 2012

NEW YORK — U.S. companies are continuing to cut back on employee travel plans amid uncertainty surrounding the health of the economy.

Americans are expected to take 438.1 million business trips this year, down 2 percent from last year, the Global Business Travel Association said Tuesday. Overall business travel spending is expected to be up 2.6 percent, but that’s only because trips are more expensive.

“Corporations are in a wait-and-see mode and holding back on investment decisions that would help boost the economy,” said Michael W. McCormick, the trade group’s executive director and chief operating officer.

The group cites a lack of significant job creation in the sectors that would spur business travel and worries about whether a package of steep tax increases and sharp government spending cuts can be avoided as major factors hurting business travel plans.

The economy is adding jobs and the unemployment rate recently dipped below 8 percent for the first time in four years. But jobs have been concentrated in sectors like retail, restaurant and manufacturing — areas where employees don’t tend to travel much. As a result, business travel is not getting the bounce that was typical of past recoveries.

The travel group said fears of the so-called “fiscal cliff” scheduled to kick in at the beginning of next year without action to stop it are “the darkest cloud” on the economic horizon. It predicts the economy will slide back into recession if government officials don’t soften the blow.

“This is an economy in need of some good news to shore up business confidence and encourage more travel,” McCormick said.

Next year, the outlook for business travel is somewhat brighter. GBTA forecasts total spending will rise 4.9 percent to $270 billion, a slight increase from their forecast three months ago. Total trips, though, are expected to fall 1.1 percent.

The organization expects trips from the U.S. overseas will also be constrained by worries overseas, including recession in Europe and slower growth in China.

GBTA projects international outbound spending to grow 2.5 percent this year. Less than a year ago, GBTA forecast growth of more than twice that.

Hesitation among business travelers is hurting airlines, who count on the well-heeled set to hold up their bottom lines. Business travelers tend pay more because they tend buy airline tickets closer in to their departure date than vacationers. They’re also, of course, more likely to sit in the front of the plane.

On Monday, United Airlines said traffic and passenger revenue fell in September. United, the world’s largest airline, is operated by United Continental Holdings Inc. Passenger revenue, which measures how much money the airlines make from fares and fees, either declined or rose less than expected among major carriers last month.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trade-group-says-economic-uncertainty-causing-companies-to-pull-back-on-business-travel/2012/10/09/7132ec20-1222-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html

 

Debate Highlights Oct 3rd

Romney takes debate to Obama over economy, health care

By Tom Cohen, CNN

October 4, 2012 -- Updated 0417 GMT (1217 HKT)

 (CNN) -- A forceful Mitt Romney went toe-to-toe with President Barack Obama on the dominant issues for voters, challenging the Democrat's policies on the economy, taxes and health care in the first of three debates ahead of the November election.

In exchanges full of policy proposals, facts and figures, the Republican challenger was more aggressive in the 90-minute encounter in criticizing Obama's record and depicting the president's vision as one of big government.

him out

The president firmly defended his achievements and challenged his rival's prescriptions as unworkable.

Neither candidate scored dramatic blows that will make future highlight reels, and neither veered from campaign themes and policies to date.

But Romney came off as the more energized candidate overall by repeatedly attacking Obama on red-meat issues for Republicans such as health care reform and higher taxes, while the president began with lengthy explanations and only later focused more on what his opponent was saying.

Moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS, at times, tried without success to keep the candidates within time limits for responses, especially Obama, who ended up speaking four minutes longer than Romney.

"A week ago, people were saying this was over. We've got a horse race," said CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen, who called the debate Romney's best so far after the 22 the former Massachusetts governor took part in during the GOP primary campaign.

Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor, expressed surprise at Romney's strong performance, saying he "rose to the moment" and seemed to benefit from the multiple primary debates.

"It looked like Romney wanted to be there and President Obama didn't want to be there," noted Democratic strategist and CNN contributor James Carville. "The president didn't bring his 'A' game."

A CNN/ORC International poll of 430 people who watched the debate showed 67% thought Romney won, compared to 25% for Obama.

Romney's strongest moments came in repeating his frequent criticism of Obama's record, saying the nation's high unemployment and sluggish economic recovery showed the president's policies haven't worked.

"There's no question in my mind if the president is re-elected, you'll continue to see a middle-class squeeze," Romney said, adding that another term for Obama also will mean the 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, "will be fully installed."

At another point, he noted how $90 billion spent on programs and policies to develop alternative energy sources could have been devoted to hiring teachers or other needs that would bring down unemployment.

Obama argued that his policies were working to bring America back from the financial and economic crisis he inherited, and that Romney refused to divulge specifics about his proposed tax plans and replacements for the health care reform act and Wall Street reform act that the Republican has pledged to repeal.

"At some point, the American people have to ask themselves if the reason that Governor Romney is keeping all these plans secret is because they're too good," Obama said.

What questions went unanswered? Share your thoughts with CNN iReport

On taxes, Obama said Romney's plan of tax cuts for the rich had failed before and would fail again now.

Describing the Romney tax plan as a $5 trillion cut, Obama echoed a line from former President Bill Clinton by saying the math doesn't add up without increasing tax revenue, which Romney rejects

"I think math, common sense and our history shows us that's not a recipe for job growth," Obama said.

Romney, however, said Obama still pushed the same policies as when he took office four years earlier, and those steps had failed to bring down high unemployment and get the economy surging again.

He rejected Obama's characterization of his tax plan, saying it won't add to the deficit, and criticized the president's call for allowing tax rates on income over $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals to return to the higher rates of the 1990s.

"The National Federation for Independent Businesses has said that will cost 700,000 jobs. I don't want to cost jobs," Romney said.

Obama responded that the revenue issue is "a major difference" he has with Romney, noting the former Massachusetts governor rejected the idea of cutting $10 in spending for every $1 in new revenue during the Republican primary campaign.

Complete coverage: CNN's election center

In his strongest line of the night, Obama said Romney lacked the important leadership quality of being able to say "no" when necessary.

"I've got to tell you, Governor Romney, when it comes to his own party during the course of this campaign, has not displayed that willingness to say no to some of the more extreme parts of his party," Obama said in reference to his challenger's swing to the right during the primaries to appeal to the GOP's conservative base.

Romney repeatedly went after Obama on the health care reform bill, at one point asking why the president focused so strongly on a measure that passed with no Republican support instead of devoting more attention to the high unemployment and creaking economy.

With polls narrowing less than five weeks before Election Day, Obama and Romney launched a new phase in a bitter race dominated so far by negative advertising as both camps try to frame the election to their advantage.

Whether it matters is itself a topic of debate. According to an analysis by Gallup, televised debates have affected the outcome of only two elections in the past half century -- Nixon-Kennedy in 1960 and Bush-Gore in 2000.

Debates by the numbers

Both candidates had their wives in the audience at the University of Denver in Colorado for the debate taking place on the 20th wedding anniversary of the president and first lady Michelle Obama.

Obama opened the debate by promising his wife they wouldn't be celebrating their anniversary next year in front of 40 million people, and Romney joked that Obama found the most romantic place possible for the anniversary.

Analysts say Obama needed a presidential performance rather than fireworks or haymakers in order to maintain and build on a narrow edge in polls that indicate a very close election on November 6.

Romney, who has been unable to catch the president in most of the polls to date, sought to generate enthusiasm for a change in the White House as the nation wrestles with seemingly chronic economic problems such as mounting federal deficits and debt.

5 things to watch in tonight's debate

Lehrer, moderating his 12th presidential debate, planned to break up the debate into 15-minute segments focusing on different aspects of the economy and other domestic issues. However, the exchanges by the candidates scrambled the format, with the opening discussion on taxes lasting more than 20 minutes.

Debate time: The candidates' version of the two-minute drill

The two candidates shook hands and shared a laugh after being introduced by Lehrer as the audience applauded before being asked to remain silent for the remainder of the debate. At one point, a loud bang off-stage seemed to surprise Romney in mid-sentence, and Obama looked behind him to try to see what happened.

The other presidential debates will occur on October 16 in New York and October 22 in Florida. Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Romney's running mate, will debate on October 11 in Kentucky.

Where they stand: The candidates and their positions

The Math on the Romney-Ryan Tax Plan By CATHERINE RAMPELL (NY Times)

On Fox News Sunday, Paul Ryan said that he didn’t have time to explain the math behind his tax proposal. Fortunately I have a few minutes to spare, so I thought I’d pitch in.

Mr. Ryan and Mitt Romney have proposed a tax plan that would lower everyone’s tax rates by 20 percent. On Sunday, Mr. Ryan was asked to explain how the proposal can be revenue neutral — that is, not reduce the total amount of tax revenues collected — given this condition of substantially lower tax rates. He mentioned ending tax deductions starting with “people at the higher end” and broadening the tax base, and finally declared:

… it would take me too long to go through all of the math, but let me say it this way. You can lower tax rates by 20 percent across the board by closing loopholes and still have preferences for the middle class for things like charitable deductions, for home purchases, for health care.

There’s a reason why it would take too long — infinitely long, you could say — to go through the math that holds this policy proposal together: because math will never hold this particular policy proposal together.

You cannot lower tax rates as much as Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan propose to do and keep all the existing tax expenditures for middle class Americans andstill end up with the same total amount of tax revenue.

As the Tax Policy Center demonstrated, cutting individual income tax rates by 20 percent from today’s levels would reduce tax burdens by $251 billion per year (in 2015) among households with income above $200,000.

If you leave preferential tax rates for savings and investing (e.g., long-term capital gains and dividends) untouched, as Mr. Romney has said he would do, that leaves only $165 billion of available tax expenditures that can be eliminated from this same group of high-income earners once their marginal tax rates fall.

That means there’s an $86 billion shortfall — the difference between $251 billion in tax cuts and $165 billion in potential tax increases on this high-income group — that needs to be accounted for somewhere.

By process of elimination that somewhere must be the rest of the population, the 95 percent of households earning less than about $200,000 annually.

The taxes for this group, which Mr. Romney has called “middle income,” would have to go up. The only ways to get the taxes collected from this group to go up would be to raise their rates (which Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have already ruled out) and/or eliminate the major tax preferences they enjoy.

It’s arithmetically possible to achieve some subset of the main principles that the Romney-Ryan tax plan aims for: cutting current marginal income tax rates by 20 percent; preserving/enhancing incentives for saving and investment; eliminating the alternative minimum tax; eliminating the estate tax; maintaining revenue neutrality; and not raising the tax burden on the middle class.

But not all of those principles can coexist so long as basic arithmetic survives.

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