The share of content that is being licensed by studios to TV services in Europe that the studio owns is growing dramatically, as an aggregate figure. The figure was 30% last year, according to data from the international content consultancy 3Vision. That marks a steep rise from 18% in 2018 and reflects the growth in studio owned direct-to-consumer (D2C) offers.
3Vision stresses that the figure is an aggregate and there are wide variations in how much content each studio licenses to its own service versus third-parties. But speaking about direct-to-consumer launches, the company adds: “This activity has impacted the market for content distribution and led many to believe that D2C services such as HBO Max, Disney+ and Peacock will become the home of shows for the respective studio they are owned by – and as a result third-party services will miss out.”
The data comes from the 3Vision Show Tracker, an online tool that tracks the distribution of 800+ U.S., UK and European scripted shows from the 2016 season across 14 markets. It includes data on first and second window sales and catch-up rights. 300 Digital Originals have just been added to the dataset.