WTDaBuzz · Research · 17 October 2026
Australia’s screen and games economy is large enough to invite an impressive opening slide. It also provides an example of why an entertainment market brief should distinguish economic contribution, exports and employment instead of combining every headline into one total.
Screen Australia’s Screen Currency 2026 economic overview reports A$11.1 billion in gross value added for screen and games in 2023/24. It separately records A$1.6 billion of screen and games exports in that period, and employment of 68,844 Australians in 2024/25. The measures have different meanings and, in the employment case, a different reference year.
Use contribution to describe scale
Gross value added provides an economic-contribution measure. It should keep that label when it enters an international comparison. Relabelling it as company revenue or production spending changes the claim.
A hypothetical studio-services business can use the overview to explain the breadth of the ecosystem. Its own sales forecast should then move to a narrower evidence base: identifiable customers, the services they buy and the time in which those purchases could occur.
Treat exports as a distinct lens
The export figure is useful for a discussion about international business, but it should not be added to the contribution number as if the two were independent revenue pools. The analyst should first understand the definitions and how the measures relate.
The same care applies when comparing screen and games with a dataset covering only filmed drama. A wider industry boundary can be appropriate, provided that the presentation tells readers what has been included.
Connect workforce scale to a specific enquiry
An employment total does not establish the availability of a specialist crew on a particular date. A producer considering Australia still needs current evidence about the people and services required for the project.
The overview’s strength is its multiple perspectives on the sector. A useful market brief preserves those perspectives separately, then explains which one informs each commercial question. That makes a large headline a starting point for research rather than a substitute for it.
Image: Illustrative production crew, Getty Images / Unsplash+, licensed original; not a documented Australian production.