Brussels, 18/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Audiovisual Observatory (Strasbourg) notes in its "Directory 2002 - Cinema, television, video and multimedia in Europe" that in 2000, the imbalance in trade in the audiovisual sector between North America and Europe worsened, as did the deficit of the European television sector, and that the financial situation of public radio-television organisations in Europe was tending to worsen.
Regarding audiovisual trade between the EU and the United States, the Observatory notes that: 1) the European deficit in audiovisual trade with the United States amounted to $8.2 bn in 2000 (or an increase of 14% on 1999); 2) the broadcasting of American programmes on European TV stations has decreased in volume but American revenue in TV rights increased by 15.9% in 2000 (going from $3.8bn in 1999 to 4.4 bn in 2000); 3) in the EU, the assets of the 264 audiovisual companies (cable-distribution companies not included) under foreign control are estimated at 15.3 bn euro in 1999 (against 5.5 bn in 1995) and operations revenue estimated at 12.7 bn in 1999 (against 5.9 bn in 1995).
The Observatory also notes that: 1) net losses for all EU TV companies exceeded 1.5 bn euro in 2000; 2) with the exception of private stations financed by advertising, all other types of television stations are making losses; 3) nine national TV systems out of fifteen made a loss in 2000 (Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Italy, Spain and Portugal). The document is available on http: //http://www.obs.coe.int/about/oea/pr/