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Industry / Market - Europe

Industry Report: Market Trends

The top 100 audiovisual players are growing twice as fast as the market, says the European Audiovisual Observatory's latest report

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Among other key trends, the research underscores the growth of US interests in Europe and the surge of mergers and acquisitions driven by telecommunication players

The top 100 audiovisual players are growing twice as fast as the market, says the European Audiovisual Observatory's latest report

On 24 January, the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) published the 2nd edition of its report on media ownership in Europe. The research, titled “Top players in the European AV industry Ownership and concentration” and authored by Laura Ene “aims to shed light on the structure of the audiovisual industry in Europe in terms of revenues as well as other performance indicators specific to key audiovisual market segments.”

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In detail, the document focuses on top players and explores “concentration, statute, and origin of ownership by revenues, pay-TV subscriptions, SVOD subscriptions, number of TV channels, number of on-demand services, TV audiences, number of TV fiction titles produced and number of cinema screens,” while providing “transversal views for players active in more than one market segment.”

The repost is based on the analysis of data collected by the European Audiovisual Observatory and its MAVISE database, as well as data provided by Ampere Analysis, Glance and European Metadata Group. The scope of the research includes 42 European markets.

First and foremost, the report found that at the end of 2021, the revenues of the top 100 audiovisual companies in Europe operating audiovisual services “were highly resilient, dynamic and drove the overall audiovisual market growth.” In particular, the cumulated AV service operating revenues of these top players in Europe “grew between 2016 and 2021 twice as fast as the overall market and at a higher pace than that of average inflation.”

“In other words, the top 100 companies grew by 17% in 2021 when compared to 2016. The positive evolution of the overall audiovisual service market was due to the highly dynamic development of the SVOD revenues. Meanwhile, the cumulated revenues of primarily traditional players (i.e. broadcasting and pay-TV distribution) among the top 100 also increased in 2021 (+10% over 2016) in contrast to the overall evolution of traditional market segments,” the document further explains.

Besides, the report notes the surge of M&A (mergers and acquisition), driven by telecommunication players and concentrated in particular in the CEE region.

Meanwhile, US interests in the whole of Europe’s audiovisual industry continued to grow (by +3% over 2016, up to a 30% market share at the end of 2021) owing to the rise of the pure SVOD players as well as SVOD services of US-backed broadcasters such as Sky, Paramount+ and Disney+. Moreover, they tend to “prioritise expansion by launching SVOD platforms, acquiring European assets and producing content locally as opposed to traditional indirect investments.”

Among other key findings, the document underscores how Europe’s top players are “eclectic as regards their core business which drives the revenues, as well as their internationalisation strategy” and that broadcasters gained the biggest share of subscriptions within the entire European-owned pay service market (excluding the distribution of third-party services by telecommunication firms).

You can access the full report here: https://rm.coe.int/top-players-in-the-european-av-industry-2022-edition-l-ene/1680a9cb32 

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