US groups drive globalisation of European television sector
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 25 June 2019

A study from the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) has found that non-domestic players’ influence on viewing in the European Union and region is increasing at pace with North American firms the driving force behind the increasing internationalisation.

The Internationalisation Of TV Audience Markets In Europe report looked at three basic vectors: the concentration and fragmentation tendencies in the various European national audience markets; the market power of non-domestic TV channels in national markets, noting the extent to which foreign groups exert considerable market power in a majority of European countries; the growing footprint of US groups in the European audiovisual sector.

From 2012 to 2017, the average audience market shares of the four leading TV channels in Europe’s national markets fell by 8.2%, with an average net loss percentage point difference (PPD) of 5.5. In all, four-fifths of TV channels in a given country in Europe had a market share of 2%. This, warned the EAO, illustrated the degree of fragmentation.

Yet perhaps the key finding was the considerable market power exerted by non-domestic players. The data showed that non-domestic players accounted for more than 20% of national audience shares in 26 European markets and in ten countries for more than 50% of national audience shares, with US groups the most dominant.

US groups had a particularly strong market presence in the European audiovisual sector compared with other pan-European groups in non-domestic markets. This was particularly the case in smaller countries, including Slovenia, where US players accounted for 44.1% of national market share, followed by Bulgaria (40.7%), Romania (31.5%), Croatia (31.4%), the Czech Republic (31.3%), Poland (29.1%), Slovakia (25.9%) and Norway (22.5%). Among the larger audiovisual markets, the UK stood out with a significant level of non-domestic market shares held by US groups (23.1%).

US groups showed the highest degree of globalisation in terms of the number of non-domestic markets in which they operated. The study noted that the industry mergers of UK pay-TV group Sky with Comcast and 21st Century Fox with the Walt Disney Company extended the footprint of US groups in European audience markets to unrivalled levels.

Data revealed that in 2017, Discovery was the most omnipresent in the European audiovisual market with a broadcasting presence in 26 different territories. It was followed by Viacom (25), the Walt Disney Company (23 including 21st Century Fox), AT&T (22, including WarnerMedia) and Comcast (19, including Sky), while Sony Corporation was active in 13 countries. The most internationalised European group was German Bertelsmann, active in 14 different territories, followed by Swedish group Kinnevik (10) and the BBC (8).

The Internationalisation Of TV Audience Markets In Europe report also revealed the considerable market share of public service media groups in most European markets. In 2017, seven of the top 20 audiovisual groups by European audience market share were public service media groups and so were a fifth of the top 50.