Viewing of online video subscription services in Europe is based more on fiction series than movies. Despite the vast range of video programming available, it is also concentrated on a small number of titles, with 0.1% of works accounting for 14% of total viewing time.
The numbers come from reach by the European Audiovisual Observatory, based on viewing time data provided by Digital i across Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and HBO Max in nine European countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. HBO Max is not available in Germany, France, or Italy.
Films made up 22% of all viewing time across these services in those countries.
While original productions are among the most successful programmes, accounting for 54% of the top 100 most viewed titles, they only make up 36% of series viewing and 25% of film viewing across these services.
Documentaries make up only 3% of viewing across both television and movie titles. Of those, documentaries from the United States were the most watched, followed by productions from the United Kingdom.
There is a heavy reliance on catalogue titles, with films that have been theatrically released in Europe accounting for 64% of film viewing, with movies produced before 2018 accounting for 39% of film viewing.
European works, including from the United Kingdom, accounted for a quarter of viewing time on these services across the nine countries, with those from the United States accounting for 61% of total hours watched.
Netflix accounted for 62% of viewing time in the sample, with Amazon and Disney+ each taking 17%.
The report, SVOD Usage in the European Union — 2024 data is available from the European Audiovisual Observatory.