By Bobby Amm, on behalf of The Commercial Producers Association of South Africa (CPA)

Season 24/25 has been a very challenging one for commercial producers. The season got off to an extremely late start and there was not much work in October and November. There is a lot of speculation as to why this happened – mostly it has been attributed to the US elections and global insecurity which resulted in international clients opting to stay at home.  

Things improved in December and January and February were both extremely busy months.  In a single week, there were 70 shoots taking place in Cape Town. Unfortunately, this did not last and, by the end of February, season started coming to an end. It is concerning that our commercial production season is becoming shorter every year. We need to understand why this is happening and what we can do about it.  

There are quite a few external factors impacting the industry: political turmoil, the cost of airfares to travel to South Africa, a lack of available accommodation (this year’s Mining Indaba again saw over 30,000 hotel rooms rendered unavailable to the film sector and the cost of hotel accommodated surged due to high demand), an increase in the number of clients falling ill upon arrival in Cape Town and the increasing desirability of locations “closer to home” such as Chile and Spain.  

Clients are also expressing concern about an increasing number of factors we do have control over.  These include rapidly increasing costs (the average daily budget of commercials in South Africa has increased by almost 50% since 2020) and a lack of willingness on the part of many suppliers to negotiate, over-exposure of Cape Town’s locations and very few new locations on offer, predatory unlicensed “debt collectors” attempting to extort clients for “unpaid usage fees” and industry organizations advocating for unfriendly legislation that creates increased risk to film and commercial producers. We are hearing unverified reports that some brands are now questioning if South Africa still offers the good value proposition it once did, which is very alarming indeed.  

For better results next season, the industry urgently needs to come together this winter to find ways to resolve these issues as a matter of urgency. Producers need to take some good news with them when they go marketing this winter and meet international clients at festivals such as Cannes Lions and Ciclope, Berlin. If this does not happen, we anticipate that we will see the same trend repeating itself again next year and the season’s duration could contract once again.  The sector is at a crossroads – hopefully it has become abundantly clear to everyone that an urgent strategy is required to turn things around. 

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