TV AND FILM

Agood deal of global electronic media traffic consists of films on videocassette that are shipped from one country to another and played back on home VCRs. Not surprisingly, this market is dominated by Hollywood films. A major chunk of a film's revenue comes from the global home video market. Disney's The Lion King, for instance, made $300 million from foreign video sales, which is more than the film made at the U.S. box office.

The U.S. also dominates the international TV show market. As of the late 1990s, the United States was importing about 2 percent of its TV shows. In con­trast, countries in Europe and Asia imported about 30-40 percent of theirs, most from the United States. Americans who travel overseas will see many familiar pro­grams. Although not as popular as they once were, American television series are still common in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In England, for example, independent broadcaster Channel 4 uses American TV series, including "ER," "Frasier," and "Friends," for about one-fourth of its total programming hours. Many other coun­tries depend on U.S. series for about half of their total programming time. Spain carries "Family Matters," "The Simpsons," and "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,"

along with several other U.S. series. Most countries carry their own programs in prime time and American series in the late afternoon or early evening.

Several U.S. production companies have made deals with European or Asian companies to coproduce series or miniseries for the international market. Warner Brothers recently started a strategic partnership with financial organizations in Europe to develop TV programs. The NBC miniseries, "Gulliver's Travels," was produced through international financing.

American films also dominate the box office of many foreign countries. In the late 1990s, U.S. films accounted for about half of all film revenues in France and more than 85 percent in Britain. Exporting films is big business. Foreign box office now accounts for about half of the revenue of an average film. In 1997, film rentals from foreign countries amounted to about $6 billion, with most of this coming from Canada and Europe.

Finally, another aspect of international media is the problem of cross-border spillover. TV signals, of course, know no national boundaries, and the programs of one nation can be easily received in another country. The problem has caused some friction between the United States and Canada. Shows on ABC, NBC, and CBS are just as popular in Canada as they are in the United States and they take away audiences from Canadian channels. Fearful of a cultural invasion of U.S. val­ues and aware of the potential loss of advertising revenue to U.S. stations, the Canadian government has instituted content regulations that specify the mini­mum amount of Canadian content that must be carried by Canadian stations. Not surprisingly, spillover is also a problem on the crowded European continent. More than a third of TV viewing time in Finland, Ireland, and Belgium is spent watch­ing programs from another country's TV service. In Switzerland, 60 percent of viewing is "out-of-country."