Programming from the United States unsurprisingly dominates video on demand services in Europe. European film and television programming accounts for around a quarter of titles on online video subscription services in Europe and those from the United Kingdom account for up to half of that, new research suggests.

A study from the European Audiovisual Observatory analysed the catalogues of transactional and subscription video on demand catalogues.

The United States contributed 55% of film and television titles on transactional services and 48% on subscription services. European Union countries contributed 30% and 26% respectively.

The United Kingdom is by far the biggest exporter of European programming on these services. Among international programming from European Union countries, the United Kingdom provided 32% of films and 48% of television titles on transactional services and 29% and 55% respectively on subscription services.

The next largest exporters were French films and German television programmes.

Among 6,705 unique television titles on subscription video services, productions from the European Union represented 38%, with other European countries providing another 2%, while the United States accounted for 35%, and other regions 25%.

European SVOD television titles. Source: European Audiovisual Observatory

The research found that there was an average of almost 4,000 film titles in the catalogues of transactional services and almost 3,000 on subscription services. There was an average of nearly 20,000 television episodes on transactional services and nearly 11,000 on subscription services.

The median number was 1,088 film titles for transactional services and 559 for subscription services, while the median number of television episodes was 6,570 and 6,137 respectively.

The full report provides various analyses of video catalogues from services in European Union countries.

Film and TV content in VOD catalogues — 2019 edition is published by the European Audiovisual Observatory. The film data in this report is based on June 2019 catalogue data from JustWatch, Ampere, Filmtoro, La Pantalla and EUROVOD taken from 146 TVOD catalogues and 136 SVOD catalogues. The television programme data is based on JustWatch data from 118 SVOD catalogues in 21 European Union countries and on 53 TVOD catalogues from 14 European Union countries collected in October 2019.

www.obs.coe.int