3Vision’s Rafi Cohen: “Europe has just an 18% share of the global market”

“The streaming market globally is dominated culturally and economically by the US. Europe has just an 18% share of the global market,” said Rafi Cohen, Analyst at 3Vision. 

European streaming already has a $5bn lead on payTV in the region. This is expected to $22bn over the next few years. 

“We have a rich landscape of BVOD, which is in some ways holding back the growth of FAST,” Cohen said. 

In France, AVOD will grow 87% in the next five years. However, BVOD makes up over a third of that. The situation is even more extreme in Germany, where AVOD represents 56% of the streaming revenue, but half of this is from BVOD. 

Cédric Monnier, CEO of white label online video solution OKAST.TV said the FAST market is growing rapidly in Europe. In the US, there are already 2,000 FAST channels. He said: “This is too many,” he said. In France, there are more than 150, most of which are single IP (a channel made of a series for a single programme).  

“What is new is that many more FAST channels are coming from Tier 1 players like BBC and ZDF,” he said. “Now, FAST is highly, highly premium. It is much harder to launch a channel because of the competition. There is still room, but you need a very strong IP.” 

In the US, the market has nearly 80% moved to CTV. In Europe, the market is fragmented. He said, “The competition in Europe is from payTV, free channels, and BVOD from the main broadcasters. That means the ad revenue is split many ways.  

“The big challenge for FAST is to be watched long enough to have ads and for the ads to be personalised enough for the channels to make money. 

“The offering is there. The tech is there, but we need to crack the code to ensure the ads are of good quality. FAST is not yet a big business but we can see how it can work.” 

MainStreaming is a technical partner to ISPs and content providers, aiming to give viewers a smooth, reliable and high-quality experience. “We want our customers to own their own network, whatever it takes,” said Tassilo Raesig, CEO of MainStreaming. “We can build services that compete on quality and cost with the US streamers. Broadcasters spent a lot of money being in control of their own infrastructure, but this got a little lost in the move to IP. We are returning that control to the content owner.” 

Bedrock Streaming helps companies design and build streaming services with 50 million global users – mostly in Europe. 

“In the streaming world, your competition is not local,” says Jonas Engwall, CEO of Bedrock Streaming. “All our clients are used to being the biggest player in the local market. Now their competition is global, so the expectation is set by global players. It is not enough in our opinion unless you have scale. You will not have scale for your streaming operation in any individual country in Europe.” 

There are strong growth opportunities for Japanese anime in Europe, according to a newly published report from researcher Ampere Analysis. Discover more here.