ANNECY, France – Les rapports ne sont pas bonnes ..translated this reads, The reports are not so good.
The French animation business, which was looking solid, is going through a bit of a rough patch. Production of TV animation has dropped even as the Box office has slipped in 2012, according to the CNC.
These figures were revealed at Annecy in France by CNC at a press conference earlier this week during MIFA. CNC revealed that TV animation production in France dropped 16.3 per cent to 181.8 million euros, even as theatrical admission shrank 18.6 per cent to 26.4 million in 2012. Keeping pace with this box office collections slipped 20 per cent to 170 million Euros. French animation sold 4.6 million tickets accounting for 17.3 per cent of admissions.
The home video segment is also suffering. Sales of DVD and Blu Ray animation titles fell close to 8 per cent (close to the global shaveoff of 8 per cent) to 120.2 million Euros, with more than 83 per cent of that being accounted for by US films as against 9.3 per cent for French titles.
Amongst the most active in the animation space was French pubcaster France Televisions which put in money into 33 of the 42 animated features which were aired on TV.
CNC statistics head Benoit Danard, president Freqerique Bredin, Unifrance co-managing director Isabelle Giordano and president Jean Paul Salome and TV France International MD Mathieu Bejot addressed the conference.