The effect of foreign entrants on the South African television commercials production industry

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the impact of foreign entrants on the South African commercials production industry during the period 1990-2007. This industry, previous to 1990, had only very limited exposure to the international commercial production industry and the opening of the industry to foreign entrants had a profound impact upon it. The study examines the impact of foreign entrants along three key axis namely: economic impact; impact on creativity; and the impact on technology standards and skills levels. The study utilized a mixed research methodology, in which secondary data such as industry surveys, content analysis of industry directories and publications, awards tables etc, was triangulated with the responses from semi structured interviews conducted with a number of senior commercials industry members. The key results of the study found that foreign entrants into the South African commercials production industry had both positive and negative impacts on the domestic production industry. The key finding being that the mean standards along all three axis had been raised by the foreign entrants to the industry. However, due to decreased variability the worst practices that existed in the industry have been removed, although the industry has also lost its best practices. Copyright