13/09/2005

The European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) analysed the annual accounts of around 550 TV companies between 1999 and 2003. The conclusions of the study, just compiled in the first volume of the 2005 "Yearbook – Cinema, television, video and multimedia in Europe", appear optimistic. Although differences between the European countries were large enough to analyse each case separately, the figures show a sector in continuous evolution, recovering from the losses recorded in 2001.

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Indeed European TV revenues increased between 1999 and 2003, from a total 54.093.815 up to 64.292.515 euros. During that period, the UK kept the lead position, with an income increasing from 15.077.283 in 1999 to 17.268.269 in 2003. Many aspects may explain the British supremacy: the high level of funding for public service television, the advanced development of digital television, the number of available channels and, above all, the fact that several pan-European broadcasting companies are UK based.

The Top 5 of European countries with best performances when it comes to growth rates also includes Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Despite its second position, German TV’s revenue revealed an unstable evolution with the year 2003 recording a drop (13.583.899 Euros) compared to 2002 (13.806.111) and 2001 (13.772.000). France reaches the third position with 10.507.285 Euros in 2003, while Italy's revenue is 7.580.650 Euros and Spain's 4.777.624 for that same year. The growth of these last three countries was stable, a trend generally followed by the companies from the other European states targeted in the EAO's survey.
When it comes to yearly average growth of TV companies in the EU, Eastern countries do it better with Latvia leading a trio that includes Estonia and Lithuania. Latvia's average growth reaches about 18%, Estonia almost 14%, while Lithuania remains on 11%. The percentages are way ahead of those at the bottom of the list: Denmark, Slovenia, Finland and Portugal, whose growth cannot reach 2%.
Despite very different results in each country, EAO's report underlines the clear improvement of the TV sector as a whole, after the general recession of the European economy in 2001. And, although the data collected so far for the year of 2004 is not yet enough to establish connections in a similar survey, the figures advanced so far seem to confirm that this positive trend continued over the last year.
The full report has just been published by the EAO. It is available in English, French and German.