The European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) has published a new report titled “SVoD Usage in the European Union – 2024 Data”, shedding light on how European audiences engage with films and series on subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) platforms. Authored by Christian Grece and Jean-Augustin Tran, analysts at the Observatory’s Department for Market Information, the report draws on data from Digital i’s VoD-Ratings, analysing viewer habits on Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max across nine EU countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

This second edition of the annual study (you can find information about the first edition here) focuses on viewing time across genres, content origin and age (for films only), painting a nuanced picture of what audiences actually watch compared to what platforms offer. The research, supported by the Creative Europe programme, also highlights trends in viewer concentration, original productions and national versus non-national content performance.

One of the standout findings is the overwhelming preference for series over films: TV and SVoD series account for 78% of total SVoD viewing time, while films make up only 22%. Furthermore, audiences heavily favour live-action fiction, which constitutes 88% of total viewing, compared to just 12% for documentaries and animated content. Despite the breadth of catalogues, viewing time is highly concentrated, with less than 0.1% of available works accounting for 14% of total viewing. This suggests that while SVoD libraries are vast, only a small subset of content captures the bulk of audience attention.

The report also reveals that European content represents 25% of total SVoD usage, of which 16% is from EU countries. Within this segment, EU films perform better than EU series, accounting for 22% and 14% of their respective viewing shares. Interestingly, national EU productions attract slightly more attention (55%) than non-national EU works, although the latter often enjoy a larger presence in catalogues. This discrepancy between availability and actual viewing is evident in all but two countries in the sample – Poland and Spain – where the consumption of EU content exceeds its catalogue share.

Significant disparities between countries are also observed, particularly in terms of national content engagement. Larger production markets like France, Germany and Spain exhibit higher levels of national content viewing, while smaller markets rely more on non-national EU works to fill the gap. Spain stands out with the highest share of EU content viewing, largely thanks to the popularity of national original TV series. Moreover, while original content remains among the most watched titles, it only accounts for 36% of total series viewing and 25% for films – figures that have declined in recent years alongside a slowdown in streamers’ investments in originals.

An extended analysis of genre and origin further reveals that EU animation struggles to attract viewers, with only 8% of film and TV animation viewing attributed to EU content. Similarly, European documentaries perform better than animation but are mainly driven by UK productions. The report also underlines the importance of theatrical releases in shaping SVoD film consumption: theatrical films make up 64% of all film viewing, even though many are not recent releases – with nearly 40% produced before 2017. Finally, EU content viewing is shown to be more concentrated than that of all-origin content, especially in the case of films, suggesting that a small number of European titles dominate the limited attention space available on SVoD platforms.

You can download the full report here.