Almost a month ago I made a post about the MPAA’s “State by State Statistics”, which is available on their site HERE. I raised some accuracy concerns and had some questions about the source(s) of their data. During a conference call today, those concerns were fully addressed and the MPAA went out of their way to explain the sourcing and data collection methods used. In short, it must be a nightmare for their research team and I came away with a great deal of respect for the work they do and the challenges they face.
I want to thank MPAA for taking the time to address my questions. The state data they report is an absolute treasure of of information which, until recently, was just not readily available–if at all. So what did they clear up? In one case, the employment in Maryland, the issue was a simple typo. Instead of 87,858, the actual total is 7,858 and the correction has been made on their site. Mistakes happen and they were grateful I caught the Maryland number so they could correct it. Similarly, I was grateful to them for catching a couple of typos on the quick reference chart I created for their state data, a corrected version of which is available HERE. As I have said before, I do not mind being told I am wrong (or that I made a mistake) because I am much more concerned about getting it right.
Let me give some specific examples of why the state data seemed toubling to me, outside of the simple typo in Maryland. Below is data for Arizona and Colorado:
| Films in 2008 | TV Shows in 2008 | Direct Jobs | Wages Paid (in millions) | |
| Arizona | 53 | 53 | 10,859 | $329.9 |
| Colorado | 10 | 6 | 11,171 | $463.8 |
When I compared these two states, I could not understand how Arizona, with so many more productions than Colorado could have a lower number of direct jobs. The mistake I made is that I assumed the total number of jobs for any given state was tied solely to the level, or number, of film and TV productions. The total number of jobs, however, the MPAA reported includes all the broad categories tied to the film and entertainment industries, from distribution jobs in a state to the number of people working in cinemas or video stores to DVD production and/or marketing and so on and so forth. The number of jobs from the 53 film productions in Arizona would be a fraction of the total number provided. Similarly, the amount of wages paid includes all the broad categories and is not meant to represent the wages paid just from the specific number of productions.
I think the potential danger is that people might attribute the total number of jobs and the total wages paid, as I did, to the level of productions. For example, since there is a direct correlation between passage of a new film incentive to the number of film and TV productions, it could be easy to mistakenly attribute all of Michigan’s 15,161 industry jobs to the productions that only went to the state because of the incentive. If the 38 film productions and 8 TV productions in Michigan for 2008 fell to zero (or no production whatsoever) in 2009, the toal number of jobs (15,161) would not also fall to zero; it would likely be lower, but not dramaticly because people there would still be working in theatres and video stores etc.
Finally, as for the sources and methodoligy employed by the MPAA in gathering the state statistics, I was told it is the same as that used in their earlier economic impact reports (click HERE for the 2009 report). The MPAA’s 2009 report provided:
The creative output of the American motion picture and television industry is widely recognized around the world, yet its contribution to the nation‟s economy is less well known. This purpose of this report is to shed light on the industry as a significant job creator and economic engine. The report is prepared by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) using data from a number of sources, including studios, networks, key government agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and International Trade Administration, and various other proprietary and publicly-available data. Where 2008 data was available, it was used; however, at the time of printing 2008 data was not available for many of the sources.
All attempts have been made to calculate the full impact of the industry. However, we have been intentionally conservative with the appropriate Bureau of Economic Analysis‟ Regional Input-Output Multiplier (RIMS II) to calculate indirect jobs, and have not calculated further downstream dollar impact or “induced” effects from spending resulting from those jobs. Thus, the total economic impact is even greater, and more far-reaching, than revealed in this report.
With respect to specific state data, the MPAA’s 2009 report also stated:
Filming data provided by local film commissions, and supplemented with data from industry sources where necessary. Methodology used by each commission varies, and efforts were made to harmonize to the greatest degree possible. Figures do not include commercials, sporting events, student films, or local-only programming.
I actually applaud the middle sentence, because I can only imagine the frustration of compiling this data. The MPAA is not dealing with one consistent source with consistent information for all 50 states, they are dealing with no less than 50 different sources that have their own unique methodologies. One state may count reality TV shows, others may not etc. Moreover, some film commisions are just more competent than others, some of which may not bother collecting hardly any reliable data.
I want to thank the MPAA again for taking the time to clarify their state data with me and hope that this helps anyone researching this issue.
