This week, the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) published the 2024 edition of “Audiovisual Services Spending on Original European Content”, authored by Gilles Fontaine.

The study explores spending on content by audiovisual services in Europe between 2013 and 2023. As the report deals only with spending by audiovisual services, the listed figures do not represent the total financing of original content, and other sources (notably, public funding, distributors’ minimum guarantees, fiscal incentives and so on) are not considered.

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In detail, the research builds on a dataset provided by British firm Ampere Analysis. “Ampere Analysis collects data on spending on audiovisual works by the main broadcasters and global streamers in Europe. The dataset combines two different categories of data. Data are reported on a profit-and-loss basis,” the report’s Introduction and Methodology section explains. The dataset excludes two main categories of spending: “news, when produced internally by a broadcaster”, as well as “global streamers’ acquisitions from their parent company, when this parent company is a Hollywood studio, as these internal transactions cannot be monitored”.

The first key finding shows that total spending on European original works (excluding news and sports rights) amounted to €22 billion in 2023, reflecting a slower growth after the post-pandemic rebound. For the purpose of this report, Europe refers to EU27 plus Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Moldova, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and Ukraine.

Moreover, spending on original content has increased faster than European audiovisual sector revenues, while spending on sports rights is rising sharply. “This apparent disconnect can be accounted for by a series of factors: a trade-off between original content and acquisitions; a race for market share rather than profitability for certain players; and the bundling of SVoD services with other services,” the EAO report highlights. In addition, global streamers’ spending increased by 34% in 2023 (versus 104% in 2022), thus hitting €5.7 billion and accounting for 26% of all spending on European original content.

The study also indicates that global streamers’ spending has not substituted broadcaster spending, which kept on increasing at a moderate pace. The growth of broadcaster spending was driven by private groups. Interestingly, pubcasters play a key role in the financing of original content in several countries (for example, Denmark, Belgium and Germany), whilst private broadcasters lead in Poland, Italy and France, and global streamers in Spain. Besides, the UK and Spain together accounted for 53% of global streamers’ spending on original European content.

Moreover, the share of scripted programming in streamers’ spending on original content has slightly decreased over time, but this scripted programming still accounts for the lion’s share (80%).

Among scripted content, series account for about 90% of global streamers’ investments versus 10% for films.

The full report is available to peruse here.