France: VoD take-up growing
April 19, 2017
According to audience measurement and survey company Médiamétrie, acquiring video content online among the French is increasing. The company’s study, VOD360, notes that the viewer now has several on-demand options watch his or her favourite movies, series or documentaries, be it rental, subscription or purchase.
While rental has been an important factor, the study suggests a growing trend for purchase. In 2016, 7 per cent of Internet users had already bought a video on demand, compared with just 3 per cent in 2015. According to Médiamétrie, this practice, called EST (Electronic Sell-Through), corresponds to the desire to keep a video over a long period. It is still episodic: users buy an average video every three months.
According to Médiamétrie, viewers make these video-on-demand purchases mostly from a television set, with the second most used screen being the computer. Cartoons are among the main drivers of this practice, responding to children’s desire to see and rewatch their favourite content.
Médiamétrie suggests that other VoD practices are stable or even declining. This is the case for video rental, which is showing a slight decline: by the end of 2016, 1 in 6 people (16 per cent have already rented a video on demand, compared to 1 in 5 in 2015, a practice which Médiamétrie says is carried out in parallel with the purchase: a third of the renters are also buyers. Just like buying, video rental is an occasional practice; on average, a renter of VoD content rents 5.5 videos per year.
In terms of subscription video-on-demand per (SVoD), it is stable in 2016, with 13 per cent of Internet users practising it. However, unlike buying and renting, SVoD transactions are much more regular; more than half of its users view content on a daily basis.
According to Médiamétrie VoD users all have one thing in common; they are over-consumers of audiovisual content. Indeed, whether they buy, rent, or subscribe to an SVoD service, they are all more assiduous than all other Internet users to other audiovisual activities. This is true for free activities such as free videos, use of streaming platforms, video downloading or recording of TV programmes, as well as for paying activities such as movies or DVD / Blu-ray viewing