OZ film and TV downloads are up, but piracy still looms, warns industry boss.

OZ digital film and TV market is up 36% new figures for 2012 show.

Game of Thrones was the top TV title purchased and The Hunger Games was the most downloaded film streamed/rented via video-on-demand, new figures from Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association (AHEDA) show.

“Digital sales in 2012 really took off and now exceed 10 per cent of total sales for the $1.174 billion Australian home entertainment industry,” said AHEDA CEO Simon Bush.

The local digital TV and film industry was worth $127.77 million in 2012 and AHEDA predict further growth in the coming years.

Other top selling TV shows in Oz included True Blood, Gossip Girl and Breaking Bad, while on the movie front, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, SherlockHolmes and Red Dog were the top titles.

The figures for digital entertainment have been released for the first time ever by the entertainment Association, which covers 95% of the digital market.

This comes just weeks after it emerged global digital music industry revenues soared on the back of legit sites like Spotify, iTunes and Google Play.

The largest digital market in Australia in terms of revenues were video on demand (VoD) services like Telstra’sBigpond Movies, Quickflix (56%) followed by electronic TV (23%) and movie sales. 

iTunes leads the market in terms of downloads but the Association noted “significant’ other platforms including Foxtel on Demand, Telstra’sBigpond Movies, Sony Entertainment Network, Microsoft with Xbox Live, Fetch TV, and Google’s PlayStore.

As the number of downloads go up, movies download prices are on the way down – to $14.70 last year from $16.10, on average.

However, piracy remains a massive issue for the digital industry, Bush said.

“The largest hurdle facing our industry for digital growth to replace declining physical DVD sales is that of film piracy and recent research shows that when Major peer—2—peerPiracy sites havebeen blocked or shutdown, piracy traffic drops andLegitimate sales see a significant spike.”

“The popularity and growth of new digital platforms available on a significant range of devices along with broadband improvements in Australia will drive more legal download and streaming opportunities for Australians which our industry is embracing.