The CAC analyses the presence of European works in the catalogues of Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Filmin and HBO, in terms of the 30% guideline contained in the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive
- The CAC report finds that Disney+ offers only 4.5% of European works, while HBO offers 25%
- Filmin far exceeds the quota with 65.7 while Amazon Prime Video has a 34.3% share of European works
- The availability of works in Catalan (dubbed and/or subtitled) is almost non-existent on three of the platforms. HBO has only 0.1% of its catalogue in Catalan, Disney+ 0.8% and Amazon Prime Video 1.3%. Filmin offers 18.9% of its catalogue in Catalan
The Audiovisual Council of Catalonia (CAC) has approved a report that studies the presence of European works in the catalogues of the on-demand audiovisual media services of Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Filmin and HBO.
The report finds that two of the platforms analysed, Disney+ and HBO, do not reach the 30% share of European works in the audiovisual catalogues offered to subscribers in Catalonia. The former has a catalogue containing 1,707 audiovisual works (1,027 films and 680 serial or seasonal productions), resulting in a 4.5% share of European works. The latter, HBO, offers a catalogue of 1,725 audiovisual works in Catalonia (909 films and 816 serial or seasonal productions), with a 25.0% share for European works.
On the other hand, Amazon Prime Video offers a total of 5,585 audiovisual works in its catalogue (4,096 films and 1,489 serial or seasonal productions), with European productions accounting for 34.3% of this total. The other platform achieving the quota is Filmin, which offers 10,327 audiovisual works (9,820 films and 507 serial or seasonal productions), with a 65.7% share for European works in its catalogue. The other major on-demand audiovisual media service platform, Netflix, was the subject of another report in May 2020.
The Audiovisual Media Services Directive stipulates that video-on-demand service providers must have a share of at least 30% of European works in their catalogues and must ensure their prominence.
To carry out the analysis, the CAC has applied a European Commission guideline of July 2020 which establishes that this 30% quota should not be calculated in terms of time but by title, with the particular feature that, in the case of series, one season should count as one title.
Presence of the Catalan language
With regard to the Catalan language, the report notes that its presence is almost non-existent in the works offered by three of the four platforms analysed. The report shows that HBO offers only one audiovisual work in Catalan (a feature film originally in Catalan), representing 0.1% of its catalogue.
For its part, Disney+ offers 3 works dubbed into Catalan, accounting for 0.2% of its catalogue. It should be noted that these figures correspond to monitoring carried out on 9 April and that subsequently, on 4 June, the Catalan government announced that, as a result of its framework relationship with this platform, the latter was going to make 10 more titles available to subscribers. This brings the total number of Catalan-language titles offered by Disney+ to 13, representing 0.8% of its catalogue.
Amazon Prime Video, which is the platform with the most titles in its catalogue (5,585), offers a total of 71 audiovisual works in Catalan (original, dubbed or subtitled), representing 1.3% of the entire catalogue.
In contrast, Filmin offers a total of 1,949 audiovisual works either in the original Catalan version, dubbed or subtitled in Catalan, accounting for 18.9% of its catalogue. Filmin also has a Catalan language interface, FilminCAT, which provides access to the Catalan language section of the catalogue.
Prominence analysis
The CAC has also analysed the prominence with which European productions appear on each of the platforms. Prominence is a concept that appears in Directive (EU) 2018/1808 and refers to the ease with which viewers can find European productions in a catalogue containing thousands of titles. The Directive establishes that member states must ensure the prominence of European works via search or promotion systems, but it does not establish any specific figure.
Disney+, which has the lowest share of European works (4.5%), uses the fact that the platform allows a choice of five different profiles (which show different results depending on the search history) to increase the prominence of European works. Specifically, in the best case scenario (when the algorithm detects an interest in Spanish productions), the platform offers up to a 12.6% share of European works on the initial access screens.
For its part, HBO, with a 25.0% share of European production, uses the only two profiles it has (children and adult) as well as promotional mechanisms to increase the prominence of European works, this reaching up to 40% on the first screen but decreasing as the viewer browses further.
In the case of Amazon, which achieves the quota established with a 34.3% share, no specific promotion systems have been detected to increase prominence. In fact, the opposite has been observed, as the European share is very low at the start of the browsing process and only increases as viewers progress with their search.
Filmin, on the other hand, which more than meets the requirements with a 65.7% share, does include systems that promote both European and Catalan cinema. On the access screen, the two profiles available (adult and children) offer a 60% share of European works. The Filmin interface allows the titles in the catalogue to be classified according to their place of origin, which helps to increase the visibility of European works although it is necessary to search country by country, as there is no Europe tag.
Year of production
The report has also analysed the year of production of the works in the catalogues of the four platforms, which are notable for their large proportion of very recent productions. The two platforms with the most recent productions are HBO and Disney+, which coincide in the fact that over 70% of their respective catalogues are post-2010, while classic films (over 20 years old) have a share of below 10% of the total.
On the other hand, Filmin and Amazon Prime Video offer catalogues in which around 60% are post-2010 productions, while productions older than 20 years account for 24.3% of the catalogue in the case of Filmin and 19.2% in the case of Amazon Prime Video.
The report was approved at the CAC Plenary Session held on 16 June, by Resolution 53/2021, with three votes in favour and one dissenting vote against.
Dissenting vote for Agreement 53/2021 (Spanish)
