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"SVOD Usage in the European Union"

"Film and TV content in TVOD, SVOD and FOD catalogues - 2023 Edition"

Background to these reports

Two new reports “SVOD Usage in the European Union” and “Film and TV content in TVOD, SVOD and FOD catalogues – 2023 Edition” have just been published by the European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. 

These reports provide an analysis of the consumption of films and TV seasons on SVOD in 9 member states of the European Union in 2022/23 and an analysis of the offer of films and TV seasons in VOD catalogues of 25 member states of the European Union in September 2023.

The reports were authored by Christian Grece and Jean-Augustin Tran, TV and VOD Analysts within the Observatory’s Department for Market Information. 

The VOD catalogue data is provided by JustWatch and the VOD usage data is provided by Goldmedia.

The reports were supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Commission.

Note: The word ‘European’ in this press release refers to data concerning the 46 Council of Europe Member Countries.

Key findings on SVOD Usage in the European Union

The first report, “SVOD Usage in the European Union” is the first edition of an overview of the viewing time on SVOD services of films and TV seasons by origin, genre, and age (only for films). 

This report is based on SVOD viewing time data provided by Goldmedia’s VOD-Ratings in 9 EU countries (Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden) from September 2022 to September 2023.

• Concentration is the main characteristic of VOD usage in Europe with 85% of viewing time generated by only three services (Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+). Fiction works accounted for 87% and 95% of viewing time of film and TV seasons. Viewing time is also mainly generated by recent films (produced in 2022-23): they represented 25% of viewing time but only 1% of catalogues.
• Even if the limited number of EU countries in the sample (9) does not allow for a proper typology, nuances appear between countries, in particular in terms of genre. But overall, consumption patterns are similar across all countries.
• European works accounted for 30% of SVOD viewing time, including 21% for EU works, 9% United Kingdom works and 1% for other European works.
• When comparing their share in catalogues and viewing time, US works are systematically overconsumed and European works underconsumed. However, among European works, national works are over consumed in 7 out of the 9 countries of the sample, whereas EU non-national works are underconsumed in all countries.
• Beyond European and US works, of note is the modest weight of consumption of works from other regions of the world (8%, well under their share of catalogues).

Key findings on Film and TV content in TVOD, SVOD and FOD catalogues 

• European works (films and TV content) accounted for 31% of all works in VOD catalogues in 25 member states of the European Union, with EU27 works representing 21% and other European works 10% (32% in TVOD catalogues, 31% in SVOD and 26% in FOD catalogues).
• For all types of VOD catalogues, European non-national works represented the majority of EU27 works, with 64% of all EU27 works in TVOD catalogues being of EU non-national origin, 78% in SVOD and 67% in FOD catalogues.
• VOD catalogues in high- and mid-volume film and TV production countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain rely more on national works for their EU27 offering (with 64% of all EU27 works in VOD catalogues in France being of national origin) while VOD catalogues in lower volume production countries rely mostly on EU non-national works for their EU27 works offering (with 1% of EU27 works being of national origin in VOD catalogues in Bulgaria, for example).

Source: JustWatch catalogue data