US fiction still dominates but experienced slight fall in 2007. - American fiction is still overwhelmingly dominant on European television screens but according to the European Audiovisual Observatory's Yearbook “Trends in European television”, is on the decline. The origin of fiction programmes (TV series, TV films, feature films, short films, animated films) broadcast by 124 channels in 13 European countries has been analysed on behalf of the Observatory by the company Infomedia. In 2007, these channels broadcast a total of 505,967 hours of fiction. The proportion of European fiction (all formats) was 39.1%, compared with 37.6% in 2006 and 36.1% in 2005. The total amount of European fiction broadcast can be broken down into national fiction (14.7%), non-national European fiction (10.4%), inter-European co-productions (4.3%) and European co-productions with third countries. There was a significant increase in the share of national fiction (15.5% against 14% in 2006), to the detriment of non-national European fiction (10.1% against 10.9% in 2006). The share held by inter-European co-productions was stable (4.4% against 4.5% in 2006), while that of European co-productions with third countries grew significantly (9.1% against 8.1% in 2006). The proportion of non-European programmes in schedules (all genres combined) declined to 60.9% (compared with 62.4% in 2006 and 63.9% in 2005). Although there are more public channels than others in the sample, they offer the least amount of fiction. Whereas 42.8% of their fiction programmes were of non-European origin in 2005, this proportion fell to 40.2% in 2006 and 39.7% in 2007. The proportion of national fiction broadcast by public service channels continued to decline slightly: it was 25.1% in 2005, 24.2% in 2006 and 23.5% in 2007. The private channels financed by advertising broadcast significantly more non-European fiction, but this proportion continued to decline (76.7% compared with 77.1% in 2006 and 79.2% in 2005). These channels also broadcast the least amount of national fiction but increased their broadcasts of this type of programme (8% in 2007 compared with 7.3% in 2006 and 8.2% in 2005). The commercial channels financed by advertising are still those that broadcast the least European non-national fiction (15.4% in 2007 compared with 15.6% in 2006 and 12.6% in 2005). The proportion of non-European fiction broadcast by film pay-TV channels declined to 55.3% compared with 60.6% in 2005 and 60% in 2006. The proportion of non-national European fiction programmes, which went up from 28.3% in 2005 to 30.2% in 2006 went down again slightly to 29.7%. The proportion of non-European fiction works broadcast by the special-interest channels (declined slightly (65.4% against 66.3% in 2005). The proportion of non-national European fiction broadcast by these channels has continued to rise (14.5% in 2005, 16.4% in 2006, 18.3% in 2007) and has now for the first time overtaken the proportion of national fiction, which is declining (17.3% in 2006, 16.3% in 2007). The circulation of European works outside their national markets has continued to improve. The number of hours of non-national European programmes (including co-productions) accounted for 23.7% of the fiction broadcast in 2007. This proportion was 23.6% compared with 23.4% in 2006. European co-productions (including co-productions with third countries) had a significant share of this circulation as they accounted for 13.4% of those available, whereas imported 100%-national fiction only accounted for 10.4%. American programmes still make up the majority in the case of series and soap operas (59.5% of those available) and films (55.7%). They also dominate the television film and animated film segments (49.3% and 45.4% respectively). Third countries other than the United States obtain their best market shares in the fields of short films (13.1%) and animated films (12.5%). The proportion of European fiction broadcast also varies considerably depending on the countries examined. In France, for example, the proportion of European programme hours is far higher than the average in the other 13 countries. The programmes broadcast by the channels of three countries was between 40 and 50%: Finland (49.7%), Switzerland (44.3%) and the Netherlands (43.9%). In 9 countries it was between 30 and 40%. The channels of three countries broadcast less than 30%: Sweden (29.3%), Denmark (19%) and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (0.5%). (I.L./trans/rh)