Brussels, 04/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - Ahead of the holidays and the forthcoming reorganisation of the majority of television channels in Europe, the European Audiovisual Observatory has just published a report (on 4 July) highlighting increased concentration on the broadcasting and distribution markets.
The Observatory report is the first of its kind and focuses on a sample of the major pan-European groups active on the broadcasting distribution markets. It provides an analysis of the main actors, their geographical footprint, position on the different markets, as well as their more recent expansion, acquisition and vertical integration strategies. The report demonstrates that 15 major pan-European audiovisual distribution groups serve 68% of pay-TV homes in the EU. These groups are: Altice, Deutsche Telekom AG, Liberty Global Group, M7 Group, Orange (France Telecom), RCS/RDS, Sky Plc, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group, Telenor, Teliasonera, United Media Group, 8 VIASAT/Modern Times Group, Vivendi and Vodafone Group Plc. On average the two main broadcasting groups gather on average 51% of the audience, with strong variations between countries (the highest level of concentration is in Portugal and the least, in Austria).
The report identifies pan-European media broadcasting groups that have a "multi country" broadcasting strategy based on a significant number of free channels and those that have a more "pan-European" strategy that is based more on channels that are well known and available throughout Europe. The three “multi-country” broadcast groups in this report (Central European Media Enterprises, the Modern Times Group and the RTL group) developed at the same time as major national undertakings, the privatisation of the European television markets, the opening up of new markets in central and eastern Europe, the development promoted in certain cases due to the absence of a public service in this field. The latter was set up in one or two countries in the shape of a network from which the companies obtain a pan-European licence to broadcast throughout Europe. These kinds of networks exist in the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Netherlands and, to a lesser extent, in Spain and Bulgaria. Generally, these pan-European broadcasters are owned by 13 major groups (21st Century Fox, AMC Networks, Bonnier, Discovery Communications, NBC Universal, Scripps Networks, Sony Corporation, Time Warner Inc., United Media Group, Viacom Inc., Viasat, Vivendi and Walt Disney Inc.). Nine of them are subsidiaries of major US media groups. The report can be seen at: http://urlz.fr/3P3q . (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)