September 3, 2012 10:00am by David Farrar

Thee film and TV industry

New Zealand’s film and TV industry has risen to become one of our most lucrative – reeling in more than $3.23 billion last year.

The sector’s contribution to gross domestic product was $2.78 billion, representing 1.4 per cent of New Zealand’s total GDP, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report found. The sector also supported 21,315 fulltime-equivalent jobs.

This is great news, except for the Hobbit haters who organised a global boycott of The Hobbit – which would have led to productions fleeing overseas.

The New Zealand market for online movies and TV shows has increased by 55 per cent over 12 months.

Services like iSky and TVNZ Ondemand are rapidly gaining popularity, along with online movie services.

Overseas services available in New Zealand include Caspa, MovieFlix, Movieway, Mubi and Zune Video Europe-based services including Movieurope.

Quickflix New Zealand was one of the latest to enter the market, in March, with a monthly pay-as-you-go model.

More providers are expected to enter the New Zealand market with the increasing rollout of ultrafast broadband, increasing competition and consumer choice.

It’s great that more and more content is being made available for purchase online. The stats show people are keen to buy good movies and TV shows – so long as they can you know actually buy them.