2017 was exciting for B.C.’s content creators. Our key theme was collaboration across all the companies, associations, industry organizations and governments devoted to global success for the province’s creative industries; our momentum is high and our future is bright.
New data shows combined annual economic contribution is over $5 billion in B.C. by the four convergent industries Creative BC serves: motion pictures, interactive and digital media, music and sound recording and book and magazine publishing.
This is up significantly over last year’s numbers, which were in the mid-$4 billions. Growth is due to exponentially rising demand for creative entertainment content around the globe and across many new platforms.
With success, new challenges naturally emerge, but we will continue to tackle and overcome them together as a sector. I’ve come to learn that it is up to us whether these obstacles derail our plans or unite us in becoming even more creative in how we achieve our goals.
What challenges and opportunities are emerging? How must we as the province’s economic development agency adjust to serve their evolving needs?
To sustain B.C.’s global competitive edge, three key factors will be a focus in 2018 and beyond:
1) Supporting the creation of B.C.-owned intellectual property. Changing consumer behaviours have significant influences on content creators’ success – where and how are movies, television, music, magazines, books and games being consumed? To remain relevant, we must become attuned to shifting preferences and methods of content consumption.
2) Serving industry’s needs. Access to global markets is core to the creative industries’ success. With 75% of entertainment software revenue coming from export sales, according to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), we can see that increasing access to international consumer markets makes B.C. content valuable and viable.
3) Expanding our talent pool. Sharply rising demand for diverse creative content represents incredible opportunity for B.C. companies, but places high demand on the talent pipeline. Attracting, building and retaining the best creative talent for this province is a top priority across the sector.
Within this economic context of growth and creativity, I’m passionate about engaging young talent in our sector.
Creative BC’s development programs and the BC Music Fund have a strong intent to nurture a pathway for creative careers and to expand creative industry capacity holistically – from individuals to companies and from local industry initiatives to international export.
The creative industries provide easily 75,000 full-time B.C. jobs with good pay. WorkBC projects motion pictures and sound recording as the province’s fastest-growing industries with 10,500-plus job openings over 10 years to 2025. In publishing, between newspapers, magazines, books and database publishers, 4,900 jobs are expected during that period, with the industry growing and replacing more of its workforce than other industries.
On the interactive and digital media front, ESAC shows 27% of Canadian interactive entertainment companies are based in B.C., with year-over-year employment growth at 7%. Finally, Goldman Sachs expects explosive growth in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) – 1,300% from 2016 to 2020. VR/AR Association has 60-plus members and DigiBC estimates 500 people are employed by B.C.-based VR and AR companies.
B.C. is well positioned to increase its leadership role in the global creative economy. No doubt 2018 holds pressure, excitement and hard work for all of us, and we’ve proven we’re capable of meeting the challenge – together we’re crafting a sustainable creative economy for B.C. •
Prem Gill is CEO of Creative BC.
