The new report “Works on television in Europe 2023 data” has just been published by the European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The report analyzes films and TV content broadcast in 2023 by a sample of 1,663 European TV channels from 25 European Union countries, i.e., 436,000 single broadcasts. Over 138,000 different works (all origins) were broadcasted in the EU in 2023 (works considered: films and made-for-TV works excluding sports, news, games, talk shows, reality shows, music, education, religion. For TV series: 1 season=1 work). This figure includes over 88,000 different European works. On average, over 12,000 different works (including almost 6,500 European works) were broadcast in a given country.
European works accounted for 51% of all works broadcast in the EU in 2023, surpassing US works (40%). This report does not intend to measure the quotas foreseen in the AVMS directive. In particular, it focuses on the number of films or TV show seasons, not duration. Regarding European works, EU27 works accounted for 75%, and other European works (mainly originating from the United Kingdom) made up 25%. There is a higher share of European works for unitary documentaries and a lower share for films. The share of EU27 works was generally higher for documentaries than fiction works; among documentaries, the share was higher for unitaries than for series. Among fiction works, the share of EU27 works was higher for series than for films. Documentaries tended to be primarily national works, while most films were EU27 non-national.
In most countries, non-national European works are key to sharing European works. Generally speaking, high-production countries (France, Germany, Poland, Italy) had a higher-than-average share of European works and national works among European works, but Spain was an exception. Other “smaller” production countries such as Austria, Finland, and Sweden also achieved a higher-than-average proportion of European works. In most other countries, European non-national works were key to the proportion of European works, whatever this level was.
A higher share of European works was on public TV channels, and the share was also higher for TV channels with 1% or more audience share. European coproductions circulated significantly better than 100% national works: all types of works included, a European coproduction was broadcast on TV in 2.8 countries vs. 1.4 for a 100% national work. Three countries lead the exports of European works in the European Union: the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The United Kingdom is the primary exporter of European documentaries and fiction series; France leads film exports, and Germany leads unitary documentary exports.
The top 20 of the most exported works mostly include theatrical films. Nine out of the top 20 most exported films were directed or produced by Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp. Twelve of the 20 most exported EU27 TV fiction series were children's animated TV series, of which 11 had France as the main production country. 15 of the 20 most exported EU27 documentaries were historical documentaries.