Report: Creative industries contribute $2.25 trillion globally
A first-of-a-kind report sets the contribution of cultural and creative industries (CCI) to the global economy at US$2.25 trillion annually – and with music ranking at #10 within CCI.
CCI also contributed 3% of the world GDP and provide 1% of global employment. The report puts forward the case that with CCI impact and flow-through to other industries, they actually “fuel the whole economy.”
Cultural Times – the First Global Map of Cultural and Creative Industries, also says CCI are bigger than the automotive or telecoms industries, and employ 29.5 million people in 120 countries. They also contributed $200 billion to the new digital economy in 2013.
The Asia Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand) accounts for 34% of global revenues ($743 billion) and 40% of jobs (12.7 million). Europe was second ($709 billion and 7.7 million jobs), then North America ($620 billion and 4.7 million), Latin America ($124 billion, 1.9 million in workforce) and Africa & the Middle East ($58 billion and 2.4 million workers).
The 120-page report was put together by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO with global firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young).
It was presented at a Paris press conference by CISAC President and performer Jean-Michel Jarre with Director General Gadi Oron, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokov and EY consultant Marc Lhermitte.
But despite CCI’s contribution to the rest of society, its creators are not properly compensated, pointed out Jarre. For instance despite the huge income streams generated by apps and streaming, only 6.5% of all royalties collected globally came from digital market in 2014.
“It’s a major force behind the new digital economy and the creators do not have access to fair remuneration,” he said.
“[Creators] need to be able to work in an environment that protects their moral and economic rights, so that they can sustain their creative activity. We hope this study will be an eye opener for policy makers worldwide: protecting creators means fostering the economy. Our creative industries help build sustainable economies, provide local jobs, generate revenues and taxes and enable millions of people, many of them young, to make a living from their talent.”
Television is the largest creative industry in revenue, generating $477 billion per year. Visual arts made $391 billion per year, and newspapers and magazines $354 billion per year. Music was responsible for $65 billion a year and radio $46 billion.
Despite music’s low revenue ranking, it came in second in terms of people employed, with a 3.98 million workforce. Visual arts lead with 6.7 million. Books had 3.67 million, television 3.5 million, newspapers & magazines 2.8 million and radio just 500,000.
Jarre argued laws be introduced to protect “moral and economic rights” of artists so they could “sustain their creative activity and fuel the economy”. This was imperative in the digital landscape where companies make huge profits on the back of creatives.
He spelled out, “The transfer of value is what happens when internet intermediaries capture value to create multimillion-dollar businesses on the back creative content, but fail to properly remunerate the creators.
“For me this is a landmark study, now we can meet with policy makers and explain what our real contribution to the economy is. And we can go to policy makers in developing countries and provide them with the evidence that they should support creative industries because they are a factor for economic growth.”
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