By Barry Flynn, Contributing Editor
A new study from the CSA shows that catch-up TV in France is booming – but the regulator remains cautious about the prospects for future revenue growth.
According to the CSA’s figures, the total monthly number of programmes viewed in catch-up mode increased by half between 2013 and 2014, reaching 311m last year against 207m the year before. The last six months of 2014 witnessed the biggest surge, with a record 404m programme viewings notched up in November.
According to the CSA’s research, online TV continues to be dominated by catch-up. While the proportion of catch-up TV viewing dipped between 2011 and 2013 as live online views more than doubled their share from 6% to 14%, that trend went into reverse last year, with live viewing falling back to 9%. Thus four out of every five videos watched online in 2014 were viewed in catch-up mode.
The surge in catch-up TV has significantly increased the overall size of the online TV pie in France, says the CSA: 2014 saw a 40% increase in the annual number of videos watched online, against an increase of less than 2% the year before.
A larger proportion of Internet users are also catching the habit: 72% watched catch-up TV in 2014 against 69% the year before.
These online TV viewers are moving away from PCs and laptops as preferred viewing screens, the CSA found – in favour of living-room TV sets and portable devices. On average, only four out of 10 online programmes were watched on a PC in 2014, compared with seven out of 10 in 2011.
TVs were responsible for 37% of total online video views last year, up from less than a quarter in 2011, and since August 2014 have actually accounted for more viewing than PCs and laptops.
But smartphone and tablet viewing of online TV has grown fastest, albeit from a smaller base. Their share has quadrupled since 2011, exceeding one in five video views during the course of 2014.
The expansion in catch-up TV viewing has led to a significant increase in revenues. The CSA estimates that the free-to-air catch-up TV market was worth in excess of €76m in 2013, more than double 2011’s figure of €36m. Most of this has come from advertising, where revenues have nearly tripled since 2011, from €19.7m to €55.3m. Licence fees from distributors have increased rather less, from €16m to €21m (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Revenue estimates for FTA catch-up TV in France, 2011-2013 (€m)
|
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
Advertising income |
19.7 |
39.0 |
55.3 |
Licence fees from distributors |
16.0 |
21.5 |
21.0 |
Total revenues |
35.7 |
60.5 |
76.2 |
Share of incumbent terrestrial channels |
33.1 |
53.4 |
64.3 |
Source: CSA
While France’s incumbent terrestrial free-to-air channels retain the lion’s share of this income (84% in 2013), the new DTT entrants are slowly eroding that position, having more than doubled their share to 16% in 2013 from 7% two years before, increasing revenues from €2.6m to €11.9m over the period.
However, despite these positive indicators for France’s free-to-air catch-up TV market, the CSA remains equivocal about the prospects for continued ad revenue growth, describing the situation as “a modest windfall whose growth is uncertain.â€
The regulator points out that revenues derived from catch-up TV services remain tiny in comparison to linear TV ad revenues, and their future growth could be hampered by a number of factors:
- Downward pressure on CPMs exerted by other online video platforms, particularly YouTube (the CSA estimates that the net CPM for an ‘in-stream’ pre-roll ad on a catch-up TV programme from a major channel currently lies between €15 and €20)
- The still sluggish state of the advertising market, characterised by poor visibility about advertisers’ spending plans and considerable instability
- Limited inventory
- The lack of a unified audience measurement metric
- The difficulties involved in monetising catch-up TV on IPTV
- Limited prospects for expanding distribution given the large number of catch-up TV services already present on the most important platforms (the CSA notes that all 25 DTT channels have catch-up TV services available over the open Internet, with another 21 free-to-air services available on IPTV networks managed by the likes of SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom).