FORTA identifies the challenges of European public television

He Study of the situation and trend of European public audiovisual media in the face of the digital society, an initiative of FORCE in collaboration with the USC, provides keys to understanding the challenges that European public television stations must address.

According to the analysis, one of the main problems faced by European public broadcasters is the small percentage in the screen shares of the so-called generations Z and Y “because there is not enough content.” According to FORTA, this data is of special relevance, since, although young people are not the largest audience, they are the spectators who contribute the most general use to the media. According to data from National Observatory of Technology and Information Society (ONTSI), those under 34 years of age represent the 27.3% of audiovisual interaction in Spain. This same situation occurs in other European countries such as France, Germany or Austria, which indicates a global problem that is not being faced with determination throughout the media industry.

The study of FORCE also considers that public television stations must address the disinformation, since in recent years “verifying news has become quite a challenge.” For this reason, media entities have launched themselves to create quality and verified content, “especially during and after the pandemic.”

Both problems are also being addressed, always according to FORTA, through “transformation into immersed learning organizations” with the incorporation of “professionals with new technological and functional profiles.” Thanks to these initiatives, the media are adjusting to new formats, languages, channels, scenarios, consumption habits and ways of relating to audiences.

Public television versus VOD

Another of the most notable trends that the study sheds light on in the context of European public media is the rapid growth of the video on demand sector. These types of platforms have increased their annual income by 332,3% between 2015 and 2019 to exceed 7,000 million. On the contrary, the public radio and television consolidated companies have seen their screen share develop positively among years 2015-2019, but in a manner inferior to inexorable advance of video on demand. This is the case of Denmark or Germany, which have managed to increase an average of one 50% its share during the year 2019. At the opposite pole we find countries like Spain, Portugal or Hungary; in whose territories the views of their content have been reduced. These figures have been lower since the beginning of the health emergency.

Despite this contrast between public radio and television stations in northern and central Europe, which manage to consolidate their space within the free-to-air television market, and those in the south and east of the continent, which see their screen share decrease significantly; The presence of the public audiovisual system among the main European radio and television groups “continues to be notable.”

How the pandemic has affected

In line with the data collected in the study carried out by the USC, the impact of Covid-19 has also negatively affected in the European audiovisual market, which lost 10% of its income in 2020 compared to 2019.

It should be noted that Covid-19 has had a strong impact on the advertising sector, accelerating the migration of investment towards digital advertising on the internet. This has meant that the production of public media content could be affected. As the FORTA and USC study points out, the confinement of the population affected the communication sector due to the news and content production model, since this work format directly collided with the established restrictions.

On the other hand, the pandemic has provided the opportunity for audiovisual media to regain trust in their audience through the production of verified news, in-depth analysis, educational resources and quality entertainment.

The communication sector

The diagnosis of the communication and information sector carried out by the FORTA study is especially relevant, since it considers that this is one of the areas “more strategic” within the non-financial economy (includes industry, construction, commercial distribution and the services sector) of the European Union, adding more than one million companies and employing almost 5.8 million people. This European audiovisual market is characterized by its disparity, and is marked by the contrasts between the large national markets (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain) and small countries with markets of lesser scope, but no less dynamism.

Regarding the evolution of the European audiovisual market, the sector presents a important contrast between different countries. The average annual growth of the European communication segment between 2015 and 2019 was 1.6%, while countries such as Slovakia (17.8%), Portugal (13.2%), Bulgaria (11.8%), the Czech Republic (9.1%), Lithuania (6.8%) and Malta (5.7) reached much higher rates. The only States that experienced negative annual growth for this same period were Belgium (-0.3%) and the United Kingdom (-2.7%).