The European Audiovisual Observatory and the Direction du développement des médias (France) are publishing a new study entitled Video on Demand and Catch-Up Television in Europe. The study provides a survey of the on-demand audiovisual services existing in Europe and is based on the criteria established in the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which was adopted in November 2007 and is currently being transposed into national law by the EU member states.

Applying this criterion, the Observatory has identified 696 services from 366 different providers that were operational at the end of December 2008. The United Kingdom had the most services (145), followed by France (106) and Italy (93). More than half these services were delivered via the internet, 30 per cent on a DSL network, 7 per cent on cable and less than 3 per cent by satellite. At the moment, the only on-demand services delivered by digital terrestrial television are available on the Top Up TV platform in the United Kingdom.

The Observatory's survey does not take account of services distributed on mobile telephones or websites devoted solely to the provision of information, trailers or adult programmes. Nor does it consider the channels set up by commercial undertakings in the context of video sharing sites such as YouTube or Dailymotion.

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