Page 50 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 2 2012

One of the findings that emerged from a recent study on audiovisual content and
online growth is that European Broadcasting reinvests up to 50% of its revenues
back into content. Ross Biggam, Director General of the Association of
Commercial Television in Europe, points out that innovation in this sector is not
down to “new entrants” but TV companies themselves have been the driving force
CONTENT SPEND
he European
television business
has never been
healthier.
Consumers are
watching more TV
than ever before ‐
an average of 228 minutes per day
in 2010 and growing year on year –
and the sector has grown from 47
national TV channels in 1989 to
around 9,000 today. Itʹs difficult to
give a precise figure – it depends
how you define a “channel” (or,
indeed, how you define “Europe”).
NEWENTRANTS
Paradoxically, at a time of such
growth and success in the sector, the
challenges facing the TV business
are also more significant than ever
before. The very success of the
model of distributing video content
to consumers has attracted new
entrants, many of them already
dominant in neighbouring markets
such as telecommunications, CE
hardware manufacture or IT, who
wish also to compete for the
European consumers’ attention.
The arrival on the market of such
well‐resourced players may be
expected to accelerate yet further
the pace of development of new
technologies for redistributing
content to viewers, such as Connected
TV or “Over‐The‐Top” distribution.
In itself, these changes are no
cause for concern for the
broadcasting sector, a sector which
has prospered through successive
changes which were at the time
seen as revolutionary (end of state
monopoly in the 1980s, launch of
multichannel TV in the 1990s and
switching off analogue TV in 2007‐
15). But these latest changes pose
unique, systemic challenges of
equality in regulatory treatment,
and of how to ensure respect for
copyright in a rapidly converging
system where players from the
hyper‐regulated world of European
TV come together with those from
the unregulated “free” culture of
Silicon Valley.
DRIVING FORCE
These changes also challenge those
of us, like the ACT, who need to
explain the sector and its
development to politicians,
regulators and opinion‐formers: we
need to do more to counter some
hype and misunderstandings. For
example, there is a widespread
misconception that innovation in our
sector is down to “new entrants”.
On the contrary, European TV
companies have been a driving
force. In 2011, 375 new linear TV
channels were launched – that is,
more than one a day. We now have
over 400 HD channels and 700
catch‐up services in Europe.
Broadcasters have also been very
active in the domain of VOD: there
is not a single Netflix equivalent in
Europe, but hundreds of local ones,
serving their national market.
Despite this constant evolution,
broadcasters are sometimes
criticised for being too cautious in
the development of ad hoc content
for new platforms. Operators know
that attractive content is key to
encouraging consumers to adopt
their products. While TV channels
are always keen to test new forms
of expression, our role is not to
invest without hope of a return or
to help third‐party aggregators
make a profit. So, all too often,
familiar myths are trotted out –
piracy and content theft is down to
a “lack of legal services”, content
companies “don’t get the Internet”,
copyright “isn’t fit for purpose” etc.
At the ACT, we sought to bring
some (overdue) factual analysis to
the debate around audiovisual
content and the European digital
economy by commissioning
research from E‐media consultancy
into the state of the market. Among
the study’s findings are that
commercial broadcasters have
launched 158 new online services in
a three‐year period. In other words,
there is little evidence here of
copyright obstructing innovative
new, legal services.
NODIMINUTION
Equally important, how much
revenue is reinvested in programme
content? For the first time, we have
established a pan‐European figure.
We estimate that, in a sample of
15 larger European markets,
commercial broadcasters spend €15
bn annually across all genres of
content – whether sport, news,
entertainment programmes, movie
rights or documentaries. This
equates to between 40% and 50% of
Last year
375 new
linear TV
channels
were
launched
“
”
T
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