29% of all European TV channels are based in the UK

This new BREXIT report by the European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, provides a European-eye view of the UK’s weight within the EU’s audiovisual markets. It provides key figures on the co-productions between the UK and other EU28 countries, the import and export of films between the UK and the other EU28 countries as well as data on the circulation of audiovisual services between the UK and the European Union. This report will be presented at the Observatory’s Brussels conference this autumn: The impact of Brexit on the audiovisual industry: a European point of view. This public conference will take place on Thursday 29th of November in Brussels.

The UK market is slightly more dynamic, on average, than the EU28 as a whole, due to the solid performance of pay-tv and also because the UK is the most-developed EU28 market by far for on-demand services. Indeed, the average annual growth rate between 2011 and 2016 was 2.1% for the UK vs. 1.7% for the EU28. The UK ranks No. 4 in terms of number of TV fiction hours produced, underpinned by a focus on high-end drama with a strong export potential.

The UK is by far the main country of establishment in the EU28 for television channels and on-demand services. The UK hosts three of the top 10 EU28 audiovisual groups (Sky, BBC, ITV) also as European subsidiaries of the major US media groups.

Read the full report: Brexit in context: The UK in the context of the EU audiovisual market (PDF)

Source: European Audiovisual Observatory