World Animation ... Moving On Up

The global reach of animation has grown steadily over the last few decades. According to a new report entitled “European Animation & VFX Industry: Strategies, Trends & Opportunities”, that won't be changing anytime soon:

The total value of the global animation industry was [US] $259 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $270 billion by 2020. The spend on special effects as a percent of production cost is about 20%-25%. The traditional form of content viewership is giving way to a sharp increase in streaming video consumption.

The total value of the European animation industry was [US] $45.6 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $46.2 billion by 2020. The size of the European video gaming industry was [US] $19 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $21.5 billion by 2020. ...

For years, cartoons short and long were a sleepy little subset of motion pictures and television. There was animation being made in France, Germany, Britain and other European countries, but it didn't amount to much. Most U.S. animation happened in Southern California, divided between Disney, Hanna-Barbera, and a smattering of small studios that made cartoon commercials, cartoon series, and the occasional feature-length animated cartoon that didn't come from walt Disney Productions, Inc.

Disney, in those simple, long-ago days, was a relatively minor player. It was a smallish live-action studio (six to seven productions per year) that was attached to a huge chunk or real estate containing amusement parks, and ... oh yeah ... also operated an animation division that made long-form cartoons.

Today the landscape is very much different. Now the entertainment conglomerate known as The Walt Disney Company operates three feature animation studios and three television animation studios. Beyond Disney, the conglomerate NBC-Universal-Comcast owns DreamWorks Animation, DreamWorks Television Animation, Universal Cartoon Studios, and Illumination Entertainment.

The conglomerate Warner-A.T.&T. owns Warner Animation Group (features) and Warner Bros. Animation (TV product, mostly). And beyond all that, there are sub-contracting animation studios, independent studios in the U.S. and Canada, and a wide range of production work going on in Europe, in Asia, in Africa and Australia and South America.

What's driven the explosive growth in animation has been ongoing audience hunger for content and evolving technology. In the age of super-heroes and muscular visual effects, computer generated animation is a large part of live-action. C.G. animation is also a major driver of theatrical animated features and computer games (a billion-dollar industry that barely existed four decades ago).

And as delivery systems have changed, from network broadcasts to syndication, to cable and (most recently) streaming services, companies have come to realize that animated product attracts young eyeballs, and Netflix, Amazon and others are working to establish long-term viewing habits with the elementary school set. Therefore, more and more cartoons; more and more cartoon employment.

It's all considerably different from where animation stood in, say, 1985. But as the commercial and technological universes have changed, the world of cartoons has changed along with them.