The European Broadcasting Union is concerned following a new report published by The European Audiovisual Observatory highlighting the proportion of fiction in programming schedules across European television channels.

The proportion of fiction in the programming of television channels has fallen slightly over the years. For the 13 countries analysed since 2006, the total proportion has fallen from 53.1% of programming time in 2006 to 50.5%.

The analysis of the origin of fiction programmes shows that the situation varies considerably according to the type of channel and the channel’s country of reception.

The report combines data commissioned by the European Audiovisual Observatory from the company ROVI since 2006. The number of countries initially covered in 2006 was 13, to which were subsequently added Spain and Luxembourg (2007), then Poland (2011) and Portugal (2013). In principle, the sample contains the country’s main public and commercial general-interest channels and, where relevant, one or more film channels. The major countries (France, Germany, United Kingdom) also take into account cultural, educational, youth and entertainment channels. 

Only two categories of channels have more than half of European fiction in their programme schedules. Cultural and educational channels (those that broadcast the least amount of fiction) mainly offer European works. The proportion of the programme schedule time devoted to European fiction broadcast by the public service general-interest channels was 57.6% in 2013 and a majority of these were non-national works.

All other channel categories had programme schedules devoting less than half of their airtime to European fiction. Overall, children’s and youth channels schedule 43.1% of their airtime for European fiction. This proportion, which is relatively high, is reached thanks to the proportion of European animated works. Commercial general-interest channels and film channels offer a fairly similar proportion of European works, but the proportion of national works is higher in the schedules of the commercial general-interest channels.

The scheduling of European fiction programmes or non-European fiction varies from one country to another. While statistics are compiled by classifying channels according to the country of reception, it appears that Luxembourg, France, Poland and Portugal are the countries where the proportion of European fiction is highest. This can be put down to the large amount of national fiction broadcasted. On the other hand, non-European fiction makes up over 70% of the programme scheduling of the Danish, Swedish and UK channels in the sample.