Study: new Euro channels target ents audiences

Entertainment and sports programming were the core of more than a quarter of new TV channels established in Europe last year, new stats show.

Two-thirds of all new networks in Europe came from seven genres, with sports (15%) and entertainment (13%) leading the way, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO).

Film-, documentary-, generalist- and music-themed channels each comprise 7% of new networks, with new on-demand services following similar trends.

Top genres for on-demand services were generalist (17%), film (17%), children’s (11%), documentary (9%), fiction (7%), entertainment (6%) and sport (6%).

Individually, the 40 European territories (plus Morocco) polled in the EAO study showed similar results.

Other keys findings in the study were that a third of all new channels in the European Union targeted foreign markets.

The UK was the leading hub for linear and on-demand services for foreign consumers, with 758 operating within the territory, with the Czech Republic second (91), France third (77) and the Netherlands (73) fourth.

Overall, the EU was home to 4,063 television services and 2,207 on-demand services last, and half of the new audiovisual services launched in 2016 coming from the UK, France and Germany.

One in ten was a public service channel and one third were available in HD. Most newly established services in the EU were pay TV or premium, with around one third free-to-air.

Access to channels varied more greatly from territory to territory, with VOD access issues less pronounced.

Seventy-five SVOD services with US parents were available, including several country-specific and linguistic versions of the same services from the likes of Google and Microsoft.