Streamers account for 24% of original European content spend
Details
John Moulding
| 23 November 2023
1 Streamers account for 24 of original European content spend
A new report from the European Audiovisual Observatory looks at spending on original European content, and reveals that global streamers increased their spending by 70% in 2022 (vs 2021) and took their share of all spending (on European original content) to 24%.

Global streamers are especially influential, when it comes to share of spending on European original content, in Spain, where they account for more than half of investment. 37% of global streamer spending on original European content is contained in two markets: Spain and the UK. Italy, Denmark and Sweden are the other countries noted for higher levels of spend-share by global streamers.

The report is called ‘Audiovisual services’ spending on original European content - A 2012-2022 analysis’. It shows that global streamers are still primarily focused on scripted programming for their original European content investments. This genre accounts for 83% of their investment. Scripted programming excludes news in the report methodology.

Among global streamers, Netflix accounted for about 45% of streamer spending on European original content. This is down from 58% in 2021 as other SVOD services, notably Amazon Prime, have increased their investments.

The free report from the European Audiovisual Observatory (which is part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg) analyses investments made by broadcasting groups and streamers. It builds on a dataset provided by Ampere Analysis. It found that total spending on European original works (excluding news and sports rights) amounted to EUR 20.8 billion in 2022, reflecting a strong rebound after the pandemic.

It is worth pointing out (as the graph above illustrates) that broadcasters combined still invest 3x more in original European content than global streamers combined. Also, read the methodology note at the bottom that warns that there could be an overestimation of the share of spending given to global streamers.

The report found that original content now accounts for 35% of broadcaster spending, followed by sports rights (at 28%) and acquired programming (26%). If you split out public from private broadcasting, private broadcasters invest more in sports rights than original content – and their investment in sport grew significantly faster than any other category of programming they offer.

The report notes that spending on original content has increased faster than European audiovisual sector revenues, at the same time that sports rights spending is increasing sharply. “This apparent disconnect can be accounted for by a series of factors: a trade-off between original content and acquisitions, a race for market share rather than profitability for certain players, and bundling of SVOD services with other services,” the author says.

The author (Gilles Fontaine, Head of the Department for Market Information) suggests the current trajectory of global streamer spending does not imply that growth will continue. “Some streamers
have announced that they will limit their investments in non-U.S. content,” the report points out.

Methodology notes (from the report author):
The report deals only with spending by audiovisual services, so figures do not represent the total financing of original content. Other sources (notably public funding, distributors’ minimum guarantees, fiscal incentives, etc.) are not considered.
The dataset combines two different categories of data: P&L (profit and loss) expenses for broadcasters and cash investments for global streamers. Cash investments can be substantially different from P&L expenses, as investments are amortised over a certain period. In particular, when cash investments grow, the growth is not immediately fully reflected in the P&L accounts. As global streamers’ cash investments grow more quickly than broadcasters’, combining the two different categories of data probably leads to an overestimation of the share of global streamers in total spending.
Generally speaking, the dataset excludes two main categories of spending: News, when produced internally by a broadcaster; Global streamer acquisitions from their parent company, when this parent company is a Hollywood studio (e.g., Disney+, Paramount+, HBO Max), as these internal transactions cannot be monitored.
Russia is not included.
Original content refers to any programme commissioned, pre-purchased or co-produced by an audiovisual service. Spending on original content by audiovisual services active in Europe is considered as spending on original European content. This assumption can be wrong in a very limited number of cases (e.g. minority co-production of a non-European work).