PARS: The study, encompassing all forms of digital distribution including transactional VoD as well as subscription services, made the projection on the basis that the market had made estimated revenue of $414m (€350m) in the first nine months of 2017, representing a £37% increase year-on-year. There is no longer a frontier between the old world of cinema and television, and the new world of the internet and digital,” said said CNC president Frédérique Bredin. “We have to take into account the dimensions of the digital revolution and the evolution of viewing habits.” The report revealed that the number of films available on transactional VoD digital platforms operating in France increased by 5.5% year-on-year to 13,972 titles in the first nine months of the year, accounting for 38.2% of the total offering.
Within this figure, 3,270 of the film were French, accounting for 30% of the offering, and 4,768 were US productions, accounting for 43.7% of the available titles. This drop can be explained in large part to the fact that France’s strict media chronology laws currently require a 36-month window between a film’s theatrical release and its digital distribution. As a result, subscription services like Netflix have focused their offering instead on high-end TV series to lure in subscribers rather than film fare. The study noted that for the first time since the CNC started monitoring digital distribution in 2012, subscription services accounted for nearly half the total turnover. Subscription services were estimated to have generated turnover of $205m (€173m), representing a 98.3% jump in revenue. Transactional VoD was projected to account for 50.6% of the market for the whole of 2017, against an 89.5% share in 2012. Subscriptions services, which accounted for just 10.4% of turnover in 2012, were expected to grow their market share to 49.4% in 2017.
