France and the UK produce almost two-thirds of animation TV content in Europe.
In summarising the findings of its latest report, the European Audiovisual Observatory also estimates the annual volume of the production of TV animation in Europe to be around 220 titles (TV movies or TV series seasons), 5,200 episodes and 830 hours. Furthermore, European TV animation co-productions account for 36% of all TV animation hours produced, a much higher share than for live TV fiction.
Breaking down TV animation production by country of origin, in average hours between 2015-2019, France accounted for 35% of the total, followed by the UK (26%), Germany and France (7% each) and Italy (6%).
Looking at animation films and TV content in VOD catalogues, the reports key findings were:
The weight of animation is significantly high for TV content on SVOD services (22% of titles – 1 title = 1 film or 1 TV series season)
The USA (by far) and Japan are the leading providers of animation films and TV series.
The share of European works is significantly lower for animation (21%) than for all categories of works (33%). The gap concerns both SVOD and TVOD and is particularly noticeable for animation films.
The report also notes that in Europe:
About 55 films produced each year
A high share of these are co-productions (37%)
The importance of exports (about 2/3 of admissions come from outside the main producing country)
A comparably low market share of cinema admissions in Europe (16%), highly variable depending on a limited number of releases.
