France: Streamers invested €245m into local content in 2021
December 22, 2021
From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris
Streaming platforms have significantly raised their investments into French content creation in 2021, pouring around €245 million against €86 million in 2020.
The annual VoD observatory’s figures compiled by public funding body CNC notes the fact that Prime Video offered around 450 French titles and Netflix 370 last September.
TV series represent 44 per cent of the platforms’ investment and the leading genre.
“This year, Netflix’s investment would represent near 20 per cent of its previous year’s French revenue,” the CNC adds.
This will also be the minimum level for the coming years after French TV regulator CSA recently signed the first official agreements with US SVoD giants Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
Apple App-iTunes Store has also signed a deal related to pay-per-view VoD.
These agreements settle the obligation made on foreign SVoD services to dedicate 20 per cent of their annual turnover achieved in France to content creation in France. Eighty per cent of this amount will co-finance audiovisual content, 20 per cent to cinema. Apple App – iTunes Store is liable for a 15 per cent obligation both for audiovisual and movie content.
Effective from January 2022, this agreement could generate €250 million to €300 million of additional funding for producers and creators in 2022, and around €350 million within five years, according to official figures.
Over the nine first months of the year, the French VoD market cumulated €1.27 billion, registering a 10.8 per cent growth compared to the same 2020 period, the CNC advises.
On-demand video accounts for 87 per cent of the global video market (€1.99 billion), driven by SVoD services whose turnover reaches €1.12 billion, up 17.7 per cent over one year. In a market dominated by Netflix (49.7 per cent) and Prime Video (30.3 per cent), French platform Salto is credited with a 5.2 per cent penetration rate, behind Canal+, OCS and Cine+.
Pay-per-view video totalled €150 million revenues from January to September 2021.
On-demand consumption has risen across all age ranges to reach 47 per cent of the 18-64’s global video consumption (TV, VoD and Internet) at the third quarter of 2021.
This proportion increases to 74 per cent on young people aged 18-24. In the US, 91 per cent of the viewers aged 18 to 24 consume VoD, notes the CNC.