Concentration and homogenization of international movie sources: Examining foreign film import profiles

This study examines the source diversity of the global film trade by assessing the profiles of individual countries' imported films. Theatrical movie imports to 94 countries from 1970 to 1999, sorted by production origin (i.e., USA, Italy, France, U.K., India, Russia, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, and others), are tested, using United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization data, against hypotheses of centralization and homogenization among these major import sources. An empirical model is devised to quantify and explain such situations and their trends over the country panel. Regressions show that the interexporter share concentration of film imports within countries increased significantly over the period of study and that this trend is mediated by language, economic, and regional variables. It is further shown that the changes of the global shares of different exporters are dependent on their relative positions. Dominant exporters' shares escalated but those of the small counterparts dropped over time. The importers' source profiles had become more alike, as indicated by the statistics.