The purpose of the study (SMART2015-0036) is to provide the Commission with comprehensive, detailed and updated information of the on-demand services market in the EU. The objective is to support any Commission's policy initiatives in the field of converging media and content. In particular, the study, together with the SMART 2015-0073 study, is used in the context of the the ex post evaluation of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and the Impact Assessment accompanying the proposal for a future revision of the AVMSD.
This report was prepared in the framework of a contract between the European Commission (DG Connect) and the European Audiovisual Observatory
As regards viewing time, the study shows that on average in the EU daily time spent watching TV is 3h43'. Since 2012, television viewing has reached a plateau in average in the European Union. However, as time-shifted television viewing has been increasingly included in television audience measurement, this stability implies that live television viewing has declined. In all countries, television viewing is significantly lower among young people. On average, a young viewer watches about half less television than the average viewer. As regards online video viewing, whereas the number of users of online video and the total time spent using video appear to be relatively stable, the number of video viewed tend to increase while the time spent on one given video tend to slightly decrease.
As regards advertising online, the study concludes that with a total EU market of €27.2 billion in 2014 - an increase of 11.6% compared to the total of €23.2 billion in 2013 - online has become the second medium in Europe for ad spend, just be-hind TV advertising. Google earns approximately 30% of the worldwide advertising market.
The study also gives insight into the composition of on-demand services catalogues and the prominence of films on those platforms. On average EU works represent 27% of the 75 catalogues analysed by the European Audiovisual Observatory. The share of non-European content is 71% with films which have their main country of origin in the US having a share of 59%. These figures tend to show that international films are more represented in VoD catalogues than films with an EU origin. Also, national films in each country represent only 8% of films in the catalogues.
As regards the visibility of films on on-demand platforms, the study is based on data collected in FR, DE and the UK. In October 2015, between 221 (FR) and 348 (DE) different films were promoted by on-demand services, meaning that only a small minority of the catalogue is actually promoted. About one-third of films which were promoted were European films. In DE, the majority of European films promoted were non-national, whereas, national films accounted for about 60% of promoted films in France and the UK. In the three countries, the share of US films among films promoted was in the range of 55%.