British film and television export suffered a big hit for the first time in last 5 years, with an official release mentioning that the export of services and programmes fell during the year.

Britain’s creative industries, which had been highly successful in exporting widely viewed popular programmes, took a major blow.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, TV and film exports were down 8% to £2.3bn. Decline in value of imported programming was comparatively much smaller which meant that net trading surplus was down by 35% to £347m.

The biggest sufferer was UK television. Its exports fell by 14% to £855m, while net surplus considering imports was down by 45% to £62m.

57% of exports, worth £485m were made to Europe, while the import of services and programmes from Europe was only 33%. The bulk of imports came from the US.

However, the chief executive of Pact, John McVay, sought greater clarity on data from ONS to analyse the situation accurately. Pact is the trade body for independent film, television, interactive and animation industries.

Pact’s own data was suggesting that exports of British television programming had actually gone up by 23%.

According to senior television analyst Tim Westcott, at research company Screen Digest, the UK television has been most successful in exporting entertainment and reality programmes.

ONS figures indicate that the UK film industry did much better with an 81% increase in net surplus to £232m compared to last year.

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