Total production volume in Canada decreased by 18.5% in 2023-24 due to the Hollywood strikes and lower contributions from Canadian private broadcasters, according to the Canadian Media Producers Association’s (CMPA) 2024 profile report.

Total production volume in Canada came to $9.58 billion in 2023-24, down from $11.75 billion in 2022-23. Canadian production volume was $3.69 billion, down from $4.16 billion in the prior year, while foreign location service (FLS) saw a significant drop year-over-year, coming to $4.73 billion in 2023-24, a more than 26% drop from the prior $6.4 billion and the lowest level since 2016-17. The report looks at production activity from April 1, 2023 to March 31.

“The numbers released in today’s report starkly confirm the significant economic slowdown that Canadian producers and creators have faced over the past 18 months,” said CMPA president and CEO Reynolds Mastin in a statement. “While this downturn affects the entire industry, small production companies and those working in the kids and animation sector have been hit particularly hard.”

Canadian television production dropped by 12.7% to $3.25 billion, largely from the English-language market, which fell by $457 million to $2.21 billion, a 17.1% decline. This is attributed to Canadian private broadcasters completing their Canadian programming expenditures (CPE) normalization and a decline in revenues in 2022-23, lowering overall commitments from broadcasters.

The drop in FLS production is attributed to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The brunt of the impact was felt in FLS television series with the amount of series falling 36.2% to 220 from 345 in 2022-23. As well, production volume declined to $2.99 billion in 2023-24, marking a 30.8% or $1.13 billion drop from the previous year.

According to the report, the total impact of the strikes has been understated during the 12-month period and will continue into 2024-25 as production information is provided and counted.

Both Canadian and FLS theatrical feature film production volume remained relatively stable with Canadian production volume remaining at $440 million, while FLS feature film production dropped 4.9% in 2023-24. Broadcaster in-house production volume also remained stable, only dropping by 3%.

Jobs generated through the industry saw a similar drop as production volumes with a 22% decrease. The areas that were the most impacted were FLS (-29%) and Canadian television production (-16%) while Canadian theatrical feature film production (-3%) and broadcaster in-house production (-7%) saw much smaller decreases.

Foreign investment in production saw a steep decline as well, dropping 25% to $5.59 billion from $7.86 billion in 2022-23. The total GDP impact of film and television production in Canada fell 18.5% to $11.04 billion from $13.54 billion the prior year.

When looking at content genres, children’s and youth programming production volume was nearly halved, dropping by 41.2% in 2023-24 to $387 million. That represents a fall from the 2022-23 10-year high of $658 million.

Children’s theatrical feature production dropped about 66% in 2023-24 to $32 million from $96 million. Children’s television production saw a large decline as well, plummeting to $355 million from $562 million. However, French-language production volume increased by 7.9% despite the average hourly budget falling by 14.4%.

The production volume of children’s television animation dropped by more than half for both English and French, from $299 million to $146 million and $15 million to $7 million respectively.

Production volume for the fiction and variety and performing arts (VAPA) genres increased in 2023-24. Fiction rose 1.7% to $2.23 billion, entirely attributed to a 23.4% increase in fiction theatrical feature production as fiction television dropped 2%.

VAPA had a more significant increase of 7.9% due to higher levels of production in the French-language market.

Production volume in the documentary and lifestyle and human interest genres both saw large decreases of 17.9% ($444 million) and 25.8% ($444 million), respectively.

The Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office (CAVCO) historically classified each Canadian film and television program to the region where the lead producer was based. However, beginning in CMPA’s 2024 profile report, CAVCO also classifies the entire cost of a film or series project to the province or territory where the most days of filming took place.

Quebec was the province with the most Canadian production volume, based on region of filming, with a total share of 32% ($1.18 billion) with Ontario directly behind also at 32% ($1.177 billion).

B.C. made up 18% ($675 million) of Canadian production volume while the prairie provinces and territories and Atlantic Canada accounted for 9% each ($328 million and $326 million respectively).

B.C. remained the province with the largest percentage of FLS productions, accounting for 36% of the production volume share, despite a drop of about $1 billion in production volume ($2.64 billion to $1.68 billion).

Quebec had a 30% share of production volume as the province remained relatively stable with FLS production only decreasing in Quebec by 7.9% ($1.54 billion to $1.42 billion). According to the report, this is likely due to Quebec being a popular destination for VFX production, which continued to proceed outside of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Ontario, similar to B.C., saw a large drop in FLS production volume of 35.2% or $698 million ($1.98 billion to $1.28 billion). Ontario’s share of FLS production was 27%.

Alberta’s FLS production volume increased exponentially this year from $49 million to $192 million. This is attributed to large U.S. series such as the MGM+ series Billy the Kid filming in the province. Alberta had the fourth largest share of FLS production with 4%.

Nova Scotia’s FLS production volume dropped $38 million ($118 million to $80 million) with a share of 2%.

Manitoba saw a slight increase in FLS production, coming to $66 million from $60 million. The province’s share of FLS production was 1%.

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