Advanced Television

European films better VoD distribution than national

June 23, 2016

The European Audiovisual Observatory has just released its latest European film circulation figures for the cinema and VoD industries in the form of a new report: How do films circulate on VoD and in cinemas in the European Union.

The report answers questions such as:

1. How do films circulate on EU VoD services?
•    EU films travel less well on VoD than US films: on average, EU films are available in 2.8 countries, US films in 6.8 countries.
•    EU co-productions circulate better than EU films: on average, EU co-productions are available in 3.6 countries.
•    Half of EU films are only available on VoD in one country.
•    80 per cent of EU films are available in three countries or less, suggesting a three-country VoD distribution for EU films. 80 per cent of US films were available in 11 countries or fewer.
•    The age of a film has an impact on its VoD country availability: the older a film, the smaller the number of countries in which it is available on VoD. This is not valid for US films – for which age does not seem to have an impact on country availability.

2. How do films circulate in EU cinemas?
•    EU films travel less well than US films in cinemas: on average, EU films produced and released between 2005 and 2014 were released in cinemas in 2.6 countries, US films in 9.7 countries.
•    Identifying release clusters in cinemas, for most films surpassing three theatrical release markets remains difficult, except for US films:
•    63 per cent of EU films were only released in one country, mostly their national market.
•    79 per cent of EU films were released in two countries or fewer.
•    80 per cent of US films were released in 20 countries or fewer.
•    82 per cent of international films were released in two countries or fewer.
•    77 per cent of other European films were released in three countries or fewer.
•    EU films represented 64 per cent of the total number of films released in EU cinemas between 2005 and 2014 but accounted for only 27.4 per cent of total admissions.

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