On Monday, April 11, at an event at William F. White, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Eleanor McMahon announced that Ontario’s film and television industry contributed almost $1.7 billion to the provincial economy, the third year in a row production levels have broken the previous record, and the sixth consecutive year that production spending has surpassed $1 billion. This production activity supports over 35,000 jobs in Ontario.
Spending was up in almost all formats across the industry, and was split almost equally between domestic and foreign productions. The greatest increase in spending was on television series, which saw an increase of 10.4% in foreign spend and 6.7% in domestic spend over the previous year. A complete breakdown of the spending can be found on the OMDC website.
Minister McMahon also noted the importance of tax credits to the province’s film and television industry, and confirmed that they are “here to stay“.