Survey highlights growth and complexity of European VOD service universe

Europe now has over 3,000 audiovisual on-demand services including 447 VOD services dedicated to movies, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory.

In addition to EU-based services, over 130 movie VOD services based outside the EU, mostly in the US and Switzerland, target EU states.

The European Audiovisual Observatory identified 3,087 on-demand services in May, including catch-up TV services, newspapers’ video services and various kinds of VOD services, including general-interest, films, TV fiction, music, animation and children’s or adult programmes. Of these, 2,733 services were based in the EU. Apart from the 447 VOD services, 44 were trailer services and 10 were film archive services.

The European Audiovisual Observatory identified 76 subscription VOD services across Europe.

A significant number of VOD services were concentrated in a few territories, largely or partly targeting territories outside their base country. Luxembourg had 86 services, including the iTunes Stores for most of Europe and a number of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia as well as Netflix. Luxembourg is also home to Xbox video services for 15 countries

Sweden was home to 36 services, including a number targeting the Nordic territories and one targeting Spain, and the Czech Republic home to 31, including a number of HBO On Demand services.

In total, 52% of VOD services identified by the European Audiovisual Observatory available in a particular country are established in a separate country, making implementation of national content creation rules more difficult to enforce.
Of the larger EU states, the UK has 48 VOD services, followed by France with 34 and Germany with 33.

A number of services based in the US also target Europe. Of the 53 subscription channels recently launched by YouTube, 29 are available in Europe and charged for in euros.