UK TV programmes make up the lion’s share of EU TV content available on Netflix and iTunes, followed by France and Germany.
According to a new VoD study from the European Audiovisual Observatory, the main European countries of origin for EU 28 TV content in Netflix’s catalogues are the United Kingdom with 160 titles (or 44% of the total EU28 TV titles available in the eight Netflix catalogues studied), France with 72 titles (20%) and Germany with 52 titles (14%). Together, these three countries produce 78% of EU 28 TV titles in the 8 catalogues studied.
For iTunes, these three countries produce 91.5% of all EU titles in the three iTunes catalogues studied, with UK produced TV titles representing 52% (884 titles), German produced titles representing 22% (365 titles) and French titles 17% (297 titles).
The differences in the catalogues are more visible when national content is taken into account: iTunes offers a much higher share of national TV content than Netflix. The use of the iTunes platform for national broadcasters and right holders to monetize their TV content could explain this difference combined with the difference in business models. Netflix has to “buy” the rights for each TV programme whereas iTunes doesn’t, thus enabling it to offer a larger quantity.
Netflix pan-European TV catalogue – Single and cumulative title count
iTunes pan-European catalogue – Single and cumulative title count
Regarding US TV content, the share of the two services are much more closer; between Netflix and iTunes offer respectively 48% and 42% of US TV content when titles are counted, 56% and 50% when seasons are taken into account and finally 60% and 55% respectively when episodes are counted. This reflects the fact that US scripted TV series included in the two catalogues last for longer seasons with more episodes.
The genres which seem to work (read: circulate the widest on these two services) the best for EU TV programmes are children animation series (the German Die Schule der kleinen Vampire, the French Mouk, the Spanish Suckers, the Italian PopPixie or the Finnish Angry Birds) and scripted crime and drama TV series (such as the UK’s thriller series Luther and Peaky Blinders, the Swedish The Killing or the French Au service de la France).
Another genre of TV programmes well represented in the top lists is TV documentaries (such as the BBC’s Africa, the French Vu du Ciel or the German Gehemnisse des Zweiten Weltkriegs). The data sets available in this free report show that UK, French, Danish and Swedish TV programmes dominate the EU top list of TV programmes.