REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL - Audiovisual statistics - Final report on the work undertaken by Eurostat and the Member States concerning the implementation of Council Decision 1999/297 EC of 26 April 1999

I Introduction

This report refers to the implementation of Council Decision 1999/297/EC [1] of 26 April 1999 establishing a statistical information infrastructure relating to the industry and markets of the audiovisual and related sectors. This Decision particularly underlined that a reliable information infrastructure was to be organised by means of individual statistical actions.

[1] Council Decision of 26 April 1999 establishing a Community statistical information infrastructure relating to the industry and markets of the audiovisual and related sector - OJ L 117, 5.5.1999, p. 39-41.

This Decision was designed after careful consideration of the difficulties present in these sectors. In particular, the main difficulties in compiling and publishing statistics on the audiovisual sector at Community level arise from the complexity and diversity of the audiovisual markets and the fact that data gathered at national level are not entirely comparable. This is because the concepts and methods used vary from one Member State to another. As a result it is difficult to make use of this information at Community level.

At national level, statistics on audiovisual services do not always have a high priority. However, the audiovisual sector became of particular interest when audiovisual services were incorporated into the GATS basket (General Agreement on Trade in Services).

The Commission stressed that statistical data on the audiovisual sector were required on a European level for market observation, for the identification of problems, for developing policies in response to the problems identified and for monitoring the impact of policies.

The general objective of this Decision was to gain a deeper insight into the industry and the various markets of the audiovisual and related sectors, their constituent parts and their development. This was to be achieved through establishing an appropriate statistical information infrastructure and developing Community statistics which are essential in order to keep abreast of the developments in the various Community policies in this field. The information acquired is used to meet the statistical needs of the Commission, the Member States, industry and a wide range of other users.

II Assessment of the outputs

Considering the number of achievements and outputs available, the actions carried out under the measures implementing the Council Decision can be considered as having been fairly successful. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that these were carried out voluntarily by the national authorities and under relatively difficult conditions, in particular as regards the very limited human resources available at Eurostat. From the Member States national authorities side, a relatively low response rate, delays in answering the questionnaire and the non-participation of some (although very few) countries in the data collection must also be interpreted as a lack of resources.

The results of the individual actions can be evaluated as follows:

Article (2)(1)(a): User needs study

The results of user needs studies stressed the importance of:

- the need for reliable, comprehensive and up-to-date information on audiovisual and related markets (audiovisual production and distribution, cinema exhibition, video, television broadcasting, radio broadcasting, cable & satellite operating market new media and video games markets) in the form of structural and functional qualitative and quantitative indicators (business statistics, supply, demand, infrastructure, service quality & performance indicators, international trade aspects, etc.).

- the need to acquire and develop expertise on statistical collection in the audiovisual sector in some of the Member States where existing systems are patchy or inadequate, as well as the importance of studying new aspects (e.g. digitalisation, new broadcasting technologies) and new products (e.g. new media products and video games) to keep up with ongoing technological developments and industry changes.

The substantial needs expressed at National level and especially at Commission level covering 13 sub-sectors of audiovisual markets formed an essential prerequisite for the development and the adaptation of the existing methodological framework at Community level and the production and dissemination of relevant statistical information. Following discussion with Member States national authorities, however, it was decided that many aspects mentioned by the Commission and especially ranked as lower priority could be dealt with in the form of ad-hoc studies (proposal for pilot studies and methodological actions to be undertaken voluntarily at national level) rather than in a regular statistical survey.

Article (2)(1)(b): Inventory of existing statistics

The study undertaken of existing statistical systems and available data at national level (in the EU, EFTA, Candidate countries and some non- OECD countries) has increased the knowledge at Community level and among the countries themselves of national statistical systems. It provides evidence that differences in methodology and data collection system are linked to structural characteristics and the organisation of the audiovisual sector and monitoring bodies at national level. Moreover, the heterogeneity of the various audiovisual sub-markets implies a wide range of sources and collection systems: the inventory of sources published in 2002 showed that more than 300 primary or secondary sources were indicated to cover the audiovisual data collection.

The inventory also showed the lack of regular information at national level for some of the audiovisual sub-markets (e.g. video, radio, radio and TV signal transmission).

Article (2)(1)(c): Collection of available information at national level

The Commission was already carrying out this action before 1999, but in the past, the collection was rather irregular and did not cover all the needs expressed by the various users.

In the framework of this Council Decision, the AUVIS data collection questionnaire was consolidated and restructured to better meet user needs while taking care to limit burden on contributors. A glossary of the definitions of the variables was compiled and updated and metadata collected to increase data quality. Electronic media for facilitating collection and treatment of information were introduced

The AUVIS data collection has been undertaken annually since 1999. In recent years, all the data collection of the previous year has been uploaded into Eurostat's dissemination database.

The four national workshops held on a voluntary basis helped to promote greater awareness of users needs and of some existing national statistical systems concerning audiovisual statistics.

Nevertheless, note must be taken of a certain number of considerations which may influence future decisions:

- As the audiovisual sector is not homogenous, some delays have been observed in the transmission of data by the national authorities to Eurostat.

- Some national authorities do not reply to the annual AUVIS questionnaire.

- Considering the substantial volume of information collected, there is a need to examine in greater detail the application of definitions and classifications. Due to the lack of resources required to assess in-depth the quality of the data communicated by the national authorities, it has not been possible so far to complete this assessment.

Article (2)(1)(d): Pilot actions and methodological studies at national level

Based on the user needs study, two rounds of voluntary pilot surveys and methodological actions at national level have been launched so far. The first round of eight pilot studies from 7 countries was finalised in 2003. A wide range of aspects were chosen: development of Business Statistics surveys on audiovisual activities, methodological development on Employment in the audiovisual sector, development of cinema production and exhibition statistics, pilot surveys on television broadcasting activities and pilot studies on off-line products and video games.

The second round of eight pilot actions at national level started in 2003. Final reporting on these studies is not expected before 2004/2005. The topics for the second round of pilot studies, were similar to those of the first round. In addition, two new audiovisual subsectors were investigated: digital radio and television broadcasting and sound recording/video markets.

These studies were seen to have several benefits:

- to improve national data collection and data availability in the audiovisual field

- to develop statistical knowledge at national level and at community level on particular sub-sectors or aspects not well covered or not covered at present, stimulating exchange of expertise and information.

- to advance the work on standards and concepts for data collection and thus to enhance the conceptual framework already existing at European level.

Because the topics of these studies were based on the results of user needs studies, they started later than scheduled in the Council Decision programme (these were implemented only under the second Commission Decision). Nevertheless, the results of the first round of pilot studies and methodological actions were assessed as good and useful outcomes.

Article (2)(2)(a): Development of methodological framework

The development of a frame of reference for audiovisual statistics at Community level was implemented by several measures with complementary benefits:

- Taking into account the existing SBS framework, a Business Statistics framework specific to audiovisual services was developed.

- Additionally, an overall functional methodological framework for audiovisual statistics at Community level structuring all the statistical information concerning functions and products. This framework aims to ensure the comparability and reliability of statistical information collected at Eurostat level by providing guidelines on definitions, classifications and describing existing data collection systems and sources.

- These conceptual frameworks were enhanced by methodological studies on specific topics. They referred to main problem-areas, notably: film industry statistics aspects (such as production, sources of income, film studios), main structural indicators on TV and radio production, broadcasting activities and programme supply, domains not covered and emerging such as new media and video games and study of the existing sources concerning international trade aspects in audiovisual services.

The Council Decision provided impetus to significantly accelerate progress in establishing a Community reference methodological framework for audiovisual statistics. Nevertheless at this stage, taking into account the broad number of complex characteristics to be covered by the methodological analysis it cannot be considered as exhaustive.

Article (2)(2)(b): Information system development (data collection and dissemination)

This was one of the key actions carried out under the Council Decision. It is linked to Article (2)(1)(c). Taking into account users' needs and other statistical actions (inventory of sources, methodological developments), specific efforts were made to improve data collection, treatment and dissemination of existing data.

Eurostat developed and consolidated its production database to handle the available information provided by national authorities. It developed and adapted the dissemination database in NewCronos to disseminate (on-line) data. Finally it improved the quality and quantity of dissemination through publications.

As early as 2000 a production database had been developed able to store, control and compile annual data provided mainly on electronic forms but also from national publications. It comprises data received from EU Member States, EFTA countries and, recently, Candidate countries. To improve the quality and timeliness of data treatment, data collection changes and developments were regularly integrated into the production database taking into account the results of users' needs, methodological developments and comments from the national authorities on data availability. In recent years, data collection treatment and processing has been halved (less than 3 months) compared to 1999 data collection.

This information system contains mainly structural and functional data (firms, functions and products) covering 14 aspects: Structural Business Statistics (economic indicators on audiovisual services enterprises), General data (on households, advertising expenditures, international trade, etc.), Audiovisual production (film and TV), Audiovisual distribution (film and video), Cinema exhibition, Video market, TV broadcasting, Sound recordings, Radio broadcasting, Cable network operating, Radio and TV hertzian transmission, Satellite transmission, Video games and Multimedia market.

An inventory of the data received has been continuously updated since 1999 in order to monitor the development within data sets of each of the reporting countries. Since 2002, quality reports have been drafted, covering issues such as timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, completeness, etc.

Since 2002, emphasis has been placed on improving the quality of the metadata collection and the quality control of the statistics and also studying their comparability with data gathered from international organisations.

Since 1999, after data collection treatment and processing, the AUVIS annual data collection has been uploaded annually into Eurostat's reference dissemination database NewCronos. A section called "AUVIS" was created in 1999. It comprises all data gathered since 1995, in co-operation with national authorities. This means that all Commission users' and NSIs have direct "on-line" access to information on the various audiovisual markets for the EU, EFTA and Candidate countries. Since 2002, adaptations have been undertaken to improve accessibility and clarity of the information presented.

Regarding dissemination through publications, since 1999 specific efforts have been made to:

- publish regularly a comprehensive annual statistics report. Since 2000, four general comprehensive publications have been issued covering most of the annual data collection areas with long time series. The last publication "Cinema, TV and radio in the EU" (published in December 2003) contains information on audiovisual enterprises, cinema market, DVD and video, TV broadcasting including cable and satellite, radio and video games and include data on audiovisual markets up to 2001.Special efforts were made to reduce the time taken to release the data after the period of reference.

- publish short publications ("Statistics in Focus") on specific areas comprising the latest trends. Eleven statistics in focus have been produced since 2000, covering most of the audiovisual domains such as Cinema production & exhibition, Video and DVD, TV broadcasting, Sound recordings and Radio broadcasting market.

Many improvements have been achieved compared to former years, when both collection and dissemination were irregular and rather limited to basic indicators covering the main audiovisual markets. Under the Council Decision framework, data collection and dissemination have gradually been updated and extended to meet urgent needs expressed by the users.

Article (2)(2)(c): Comparison of existing statistical system in Member States with some non Member States and especially Acceding countries.

Due to the complex and patchy data collection structure in many Member States, the comparison of existing statistical systems in Member States and also Candidate countries was a rolling process with a view to improving statistical knowledge and information comparability. In the framework of the Council Decision, specific actions were undertaken:

- to extend the inventory of audiovisual statistics and sources already made for Member States to cover Candidate countries and some non-European OECD countries (USA, Japan, Canada and Australia). The main objective of the inventory of available statistics and sources was to identify the areas of audiovisual data collection where the degree of availability (and to lesser extent comparability) matches those of the EU and EFTA countries.

- to extend the collection and dissemination of information to cover Candidate countries including acceding countries in the light of EU enlargement in 2004. This action also comprises the collection of historical data with a view to establishing time-series for the past.

- to develop co-operation with international organisations to build up a common methodological framework and harmonised classifications at international level in co-operation with the European Audiovisual Observatory. The practical results of this co-operation are visible, notably with the involvement of the EAO in some methodological developments conducted by Eurostat. A fruitful result of this co-operation was also the joint proposal made in 2002 concerning the update of NACE classifications for audiovisual activities in advance of a major revision of classifications in 2007. This on-going work may well have an impact on the availability and comparability of structural business statistics applied to the audiovisual sector.

Article (2)(2)(d): Assessment of the relevance of and future needs for audiovisual statistics

The assessment of the relevance of the statistics in the audiovisual sector and the future needs was carried out during the consultations of users in the Commission, and international organisations. The summary of the results presented in 2001 clearly suggests that the AUVIS collection system was matching most of the Commission users' requirements. The AUVIS framework was subsequently revised to incorporate additional needs expressed by users. Now it can be said that the AUVIS methodological framework, whilst not exhaustive, is broad enough to provide useful tools for monitoring and assessing the impact of the various European Union policies and programmes (Media programmes, Television without frontiers Directive, audiovisual policies and trade aspects, Employment policies, Competition policies in the audiovisual sector, convergence between the Communication and the audiovisual industry, etc.).

However, the results of recent annual AUVIS data collections, show clearly that national statistical systems are not sufficiently developed to cover all the needs expressed by the users without heavy methodological developments and additional resources.

In the light of ongoing cuts in resources available in Member States it is likely to become increasingly difficult to obtain satisfactory results from a voluntary data collection.

III Conclusions

Evaluation of the past

In the mid-nineties, and against a background of changing technologies and business models, the demand from the industry and from policy-makers for comprehensive statistical information on the audiovisual sector began to grow. However, the need could not be satisfied, due to the objective difficulties in compiling statistics at pan-European level given the complexity and diversity of the national audiovisual markets. Moreover, data gathered at national level were not entirely comparable and the concepts and methods used varied from one Member State to another.

The statistical infrastructure established for the audiovisual sector was notably designed to harmonise existing statistics and improve their dissemination, to develop a common methodological framework for the statistics produced by the national authorities, to focus the collection of information on selected needs expressed by the different users and to provide adequate inputs for the definition of Community policies. The availability of a full set of statistics on international trade was one of the major areas of interest.

The measures undertaken under the Council Decision 1999/297/EC implementation have produced relevant results in terms of:

- making a step forward to establishing and implementing a common methodological framework for audiovisual and related markets at Community level, including an inventory of sources and better coverage of the audio-visual sector in the forthcoming revised classification NACE 2007,

- contributing to capacity-building in the Member States by supporting the execution of pilot actions,

- increasing the regularity and timeliness of the collection and dissemination of statistics on the industry and markets of the audiovisual and related sectors and preparing the coverage of the audio-visual sector in the revised Regulation on Structural Business Statistics,

- improving the degree of comparability and harmonisation.

Future outlooks

However, the five years this Council decision has been in force were characterised by a shortage of human resources at both Eurostat and the national authorities, a shortage resulting mainly from the low priority accorded to statistics on the industry and markets of the audio-visual and related sectors. Considerable work would thus still be needed to turn audio-visual statistics into an area of quality statistics, especially as far as the dimensions of timeliness, completeness, coherence, comparability and relevance of the data are concerned. In particular, the following actions would need to be implemented:

- Member States would need to be put into a position to provide Eurostat with complete and timely data, respecting the concepts and definitions as set out in the methodological framework. The actions necessary would need to cover both technical aspects and the availability of a new Community legal framework.

- Eurostat would need to be put into a position to evaluate in detail the quality of the data provided by National authorities with a view to improving the comparability and coherence at Community level.

- Both the methodological framework and the data collection would need to be updated in order to improve their relevance by taking into account areas that have not yet been covered sufficiently (such as employment in the audio-visual sector, and trade aspects) as well as the coverage of new audiovisual products and services.

- Moreover, in the context of the current and further EU enlargements, specific measures should be taken to help the future members to adapt their national statistical system and to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and the exchange of experience needed to increase the development of their statistics.

While recognising the relevance of statistics relating to the industry and markets of the audio-visual and related sectors for certain policy areas, it is obvious that they are of lower relevance than other statistics relating to the EMU, to core aspects of EU competitiveness in important sectors of the economy or the new social agenda. As a result of this priority-setting, the Commission is in the current circumstances not in a position to pursue the work on statistics relating to the industry and markets of the audio-visual and related sectors.

ANNEX: DESCRIPTION OF THE LEGAL INSTRUMENTS

I. Council Decision 1999/297/EC [2] of 26 April 1999

[2] Council Decision of 26 April 1999 establishing a Community statistical information infrastructure relating to the industry and markets of the audiovisual and related sector - OJ L 117, 5.5.1999, p. 39-41.

The Council Decision 1999/297/EC of 26 April 1999 establishing a statistical information infrastructure relating to the industry and markets of the audiovisual and related sectors is set to achieve its objective by defining a set of individual statistical actions, in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 322/97, to be done by the Member States (national authorities) and by the Commission (Eurostat). In particular, Article 2 of the Decision is divided into two parts. The first part refers to the individual statistical actions to be undertaken by the national authorities and the second part refers to those actions to be undertaken by Eurostat.

The first part states that the national authorities should:

(a) analyse and evaluate the demand for statistics (firms, functions and products) on the audiovisual sector from users (Community institutions, government departments, national sectoral bodies, international organisations, economic operators) and the effect on businesses, especially SMEs, of the collection of statistics in the audiovisual sector;

(b) analyse the existing statistics (firms, functions and products) and their sources;

(c) forward to Eurostat, on an annual basis, statistics (firms, functions and products) already on hand or available from the competent national authorities;

(d) participate, on a voluntary basis, in pilot studies to test working methods in practice and promote the creation of Community statistics (firms, functions and products);

The second part states that Eurostat should:

(a) prepare a Community institutional and functional methodological framework (firms, functions and products);

(b) create a database for statistics forwarded by the national authorities, as mentioned in paragraph 1(c) above, and data gathered from international organisations;

(c) compare existing statistical systems in Member States and some non-Member States, especially the pre-accession States;

(d) assess the relevance of, and future needs for, statistics in the audiovisual sector, especially in terms of data needed for the development and follow-up of employment, training and equal opportunities policy.

Article 3 of the Decision refers to the implementation of the statistical actions given above. Finally, Articles 4 and 5 refer to the procedure that needed to be followed when deciding the necessary measures of implementation as well as to the reports that should be prepared to document the progress of the implementation of the Decision, which is also the reason for writing this report.

II Commission Decisions Implementing the Council Decision

The Council Decision has been implemented through the adoption of two Commission Decisions: 1999/841/EC of 24 November 1999 and 2002/591/EC of 11 July 2002. Below a description of the individual measures adopted in each Commission Decision is given together with two tables illustrating the correspondence between the measures of each Commission Decision and the individual statistical action of the Council Decision.

II.A Commission Decision of 24 November 1999

A first set of 14 actions was published in December 1999. This specified the work planned for 1999-2001. Most notably it allowed Community subsidies for the work done by Member States on user needs studies, the update of the inventory of sources, and workshops with data suppliers. It also asked Member States to fill in and return the annual AUVIS questionnaire. These 14 actions were:

a) 4 measures to implement actions to be undertaken by national authorities:

- Studies by each Member State of priorities concerning national user needs for statistics. (The domains to be studied were to be those in the AUVIS classification plan)

- Update of the existing inventory by each Member State of national statistics and sources

- Optionally, development of the network of contacts between the Member States and main data producers by means of workshops held in volunteer Member States

- Forwarding to Eurostat by each Member State during 2000 of audiovisual statistics (firms, functions and products) already on hand or available from the competent national authorities. (The questionnaire, based on the AUVIS classification plan, was to be sent to Member States in the second quarter of the year 2000)

b) 10 measures to implement actions to be undertaken by Eurostat:

- Updating of the chapter specific to audiovisual services in the Eurostat Manual of Business Statistics

- Updating and publication, via the web, of the general methodological manual on audiovisual statistics

- Methodological studies on specific topics selected from within the following broad areas:

- structural business statistics for enterprises of the audiovisual and related sectors;

- statistics on selected sub-sectors such as film production, TV and radio;

- selected topics such as international trade in services of the audiovisual and related sectors, international co-productions, new media

- Processing of the data received from the 1999 questionnaire to Member States, and making the results available in Eurostat's dissemination database, and via publications

- Participation in workshops held in volunteer Member States for the development of the network of contacts between the Member States and main data producers

- Processing the data received from the 2000 questionnaire to Member States, and making the results available in Eurostat's dissemination database, and via publications

- Adaptation of an existing Eurostat computerised system to receive, validate, transform and store statistics gathered from Member States and international organisations

- Comparison of existing statistical systems in Member States with a view to improved harmonisation

- Study of the priorities concerning needs for statistics by the Commission's services

- Study of the priorities concerning needs for statistics by international organisations working in the field

Table 1: Correspondence between the Council Decision and Commission Decision 1999/841/EC

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II.B Commission Decision of 11 July 2002

Commission Decision 2002/591/EC was adopted in July 2002 and described a further set of 11 measures for the implementation of statistical actions to be carried out at Commission and Member States level for the period 2002 - 2004. This Commission Decision specified three measures to be undertaken by Member States and eight measures to be undertaken by Eurostat to implement actions foreseen in Council Decision 1999/297/EC.

a) The three measures to be undertaken by Member States are:

- An annual update of the existing inventory of national statistics and sources

- (measure A-1);

- The annual forwarding to Eurostat by each Member State of data

- (via a questionnaire) on Audiovisual Statistics (firms functions and products) already at hand or available from competent national authorities. The questionnaire which is based on the AUVIS methodology may be revised each year after consultation with Member States (measure A-2);

- Voluntary participation in pilot studies to test working methods and nomenclatures. The list of topics for pilot studies have been discussed by a Task Force in December 2000 and take into account the priorities expressed in the user needs studies. Eurostat will consult the Member States on the list of studies to be carried out (measure A-3).

b) The eight measures to be undertaken by Eurostat are:

- Studies to develop the Community institutional and functional methodological framework and nomenclatures with emphasis on the priority areas highlighted in the user needs studies. The list of studies will be drawn up by Eurostat after Consultation with Member States (measure B-1);

- Regular updating and dissemination of the general methodological manual on audiovisual statistics (AUVIS methodology) (measure B-2);

- Updating of the chapter specific to Audiovisual services in the Eurostat Manual of Business Statistics taking into account the results of the studies to develop enterprise statistics for the Audiovisual sector (measure B-3);

- Annual processing of the data received from the annual questionnaire to Member States and dissemination of the results via Eurostat database and publications (measure B-4);

- Adaptation of the existing Eurostat computerised system to receive, validate transform and store statistics gathered from Member States and International organisations (measure B-5);

- Comparison of existing statistical systems in Member States, and Candidate and other countries with a view to improve comparability (measure B-6);

- Providing for an interim report on the progress made in implementing the Council Decision to the Council and European Parliament (measure B-7);

- Providing for a final report giving overall assessment of the implementation of Decision 1999/297/EC and of the relevance of, and needs for, statistics in the audiovisual sector (measure B-8).

Table 2: Correspondence between the Council Decision and Commission Decision 2002/591/EC

A. Measures to implement actions to be undertaken by national authorities

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B. Measures to implement actions to be undertaken by Eurostat

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