European co-productions get better VOD distribution than national films, however, they travel less well than US films, according to the latest research by the European Audiovisual Observatory.
The results can be found in a brand new report: How do films circulate on VOD and in cinemas in the European Union, which is available as a free download
The report examines questions such as: How do films circulate on EU VOD services?
The report concludes that EU films travel less well on VOD than US films: on average, EU films are available in 2.8 countries, US films in 6.8 countries. EU co-productions circulate better than EU films: on average, EU co-productions are available in 3.6 countries. Half of EU films are only available on VOD in one country.
80% of EU films are available in three countries or less, suggesting a three-country VOD distribution for EU films. 80% of US films were available in 11 countries or fewer. The age of a film has an impact on its VOD country availability: the older a film, the smaller the number of countries in which it is available on VOD. This is not valid for US films – for which age does not seem to have an impact on country availability..
EU films travel less well than US films in cinemas: on average, EU films produced and released between 2005 and 2014 were released in cinemas in 2.6 countries, US films in 9.7 countries.
Identifying release clusters in cinemas, for most films surpassing three theatrical release markets remains difficult, except for US films:
· 63% of EU films were only released in one country, mostly their national market.
· 79% of EU films were released in two countries or fewer.
· 80% of US films were released in 20 countries or fewer.
· 82% of international (1) films were released in two countries or fewer.
· 77% of other European films were released in three countries or fewer.
EU films represented 64% of the total number of films released in EU cinemas between 2005 and 2014 but accounted for only 27.4% of total admissions.
