A quarter of Europe’s private TV channels are US-owned
European audiovisual services continue to grow. 25% of all private TV channels (excluding local TV) are US-owned and 9% of all on-demand services in Europe belong to a US company, according to a report from the European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The US TV channel portfolios are significantly larger than European ones, with 70% of channels in the top 10 TV groups owned by five US companies.
There are a total of 12 955 audiovisual media services and video-sharing platforms available in wider Europe (defined as EU plus non-EU countries like the UK, Norway, Switzerland and Türkiye). Around three quarters of these services are linear services (9 536 TV channels) and one quarter are non-linear services (3 419 VOD services and video-sharing platforms).
The number of audiovisual media services and video-sharing platforms available increased in wider Europe by 2% between December 2023 and December 2024.
The number of on-demand services grew faster (4%) than the number of TV channels (1%). The growth of TV channels is partly driven by free and advertising supported (FAST) channels, the report says.
Audiovisual media services and video sharing platforms (VSPs) are privately owned most of the time: 91% of the total are owned by private companies. 10% of TV channels are publicly owned as opposed to 4% public ownership of VOD (video on demand) and VSP services.
“The category of content is quite different when comparing public TV channels and public VOD/VSPs. While public channels specialised in films and TV fiction are almost non existent, 14% of public VOD services specialise in films and TV fiction. It seems that public service media have developed their online presence as an outlet to offer more thematic content to targeted audiences in order to adapt to digital consumption and audience fragmentation.”
TV channels still represent the majority of media services in number (74%), followed by VOD (25%) and VSPs (1%).
41% of TV is local and regional channels which is one of the reasons why TV is overrepresented, the report says.
Most audiovisual content offers thematic programmes (55%), While on demand services have a clear focus on film and TV fiction content, TV programming is more fragmented in terms of thematic.
US players all operate fully on the pan-European level, serving numerous European markets. Warner Bros Discovery’s brands such as Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Eurosport and MAX are virtually omnipresent with 45 European markets covered.
Walt Disney, Amazon, Netflix, Comcast and Paramount all operate in 40 or more European markets.
Overall, European players have lower market presences compared to Chinese, Japanese and US players.
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