The European Audiovisual Observatory has published the second volume of the 2013 edition of its Yearbook. This is the 19th edition of this reference publication and provides figures and analyses on the position of the European audiovisual industry on the global market, on the developments of distribution platforms, television services and on-demand audiovisual services and on the European cinema and physical video market. For the first time, this Yearbook provides an analysis of the position of European fiction in the programming of television channels in the US.

Highlights from the data include:

·     The share of the European industry on the global market, calculated on the basis of an analysis of the audiovisual turnover (cinema, television, VoD, recorded music, video games, specialised retailing) of the 50 leading groups worldwide, fell from 17.1 per cent in 2009 to 12.5 per cent in 2013, whereas the share of the groups established in the US rose from 57.7 per cent to 66.4 per cent.

·     The revenues of the public service broadcasters in the European Union fell from €33.4 billion in 2009 to €32.6 billion in 2012. In 2012, the proportion of public revenues (licence fees, funding from public budgets, contributions, etc.) accounted for 76.2 per cent of these revenues, compared with 21.4 per cent for commercial revenues (advertising, pay-TV fees, sales of rights and products, etc.) and 2.4 per cent for other revenues.

·     The turnover of the 19 main European commercial television groups for continued operations has risen by 1 per cent in 2013. The groups that derive the bulk of their revenues from pay-TV posted growth of 1.5 per cent, whereas the revenues of the groups mainly financed by advertising remained stable (-0.1 per cent).

·     In 2013, the pay-TV sector had 7,898 operators in 37 countries, which was a significant reduction in their number compared with 2009 (8,381, or -5.8 per cent). Concentration was particularly marked in the cable sector (7,551 operators compared with 8,079) and in the case of mobile TV operators (53 in 2013 compared with 77 in 2009). By contrast, the number of satellite platform operators rose from 73 to 80 and that of pay-DTT platform operators from 25 to 33, despite several business failures, while the number of IPTV platform operators on DSL networks rose from 127 to 181, thus illustrating the growing role of telecommunications operators in the distribution of audiovisual services.

·     An analysis of the programming of fiction (films, TV films, series, animation) by 35 television channels in the US in 2012 shows that the hourly proportion of European fiction was just 8.2 per cent, including 7 per cent for fiction from co-productions or productions co-financed between European producers and producers from other parts of the world (mainly American). By comparison, the proportion of US fiction in the programming of a sample of European channels consistently exceeds 52 per cent.

·     59.5% per cent of VoD services available in the countries of the European Union are controlled by U.S. groups.

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