A new study by KPMG says 90% of the UK’s most popular film and television content can be viewed through legal digital platforms.
Electronic Sell Through from places such as the iTunes Store, Google Play and the now defunct Tesco Clubcard store provided 61% of titles. KPMG says the market has been transformed through Netflix, Amazon and NOW TV.
The next highest availability was under the SVOD model, where KPMG found that 31% of the 814 TV titles were available.
John McVay, Chief Executive of Pact, said: “There has been a huge transformation in the digital availability of quality film and TV content on offer in the UK in recent years. Today’s report highlights just how much progress we have made as an industry. However, these legal services still have to compete with criminal websites making the same content available for free and contributing nothing to the legitimate creative economy. Successfully tackling piracy remains a critical part of helping these legitimate platforms grow.”
However, digital copies of TV programmes are not widely available via online rental, either as individual episodes or as an entire TV series.
KPMG puts this down to it being uneconomic to offer single episodes compared to an entire season or ‘boxed set’.
