U.S. Companies Own Nearly Half Of Europe’s Kids’ Channels

A new report published by the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) has revealed that nearly half (48%) of all children’s tv channels in Europe are owned by U.S. companies.

Linear TV

Five of the top 10 tv groups in Europe belong to U.S. parent companies. Tv groups operating in the largest number of territories include Warner Bros. Discovery (46), The Walt Disney Company (44), Paramount (41), and Comcast (36).

That said, in Europe, kids’ content only makes up around 3% of all programming that is aired by tv broadcasters, making it one of the smallest categories that the EAO tracks.

U.S. companies, on the other hand, feature portfolios many times larger than those of their European competitors and dedicate a much higher portion of their programming to children’s content at 12%.

On-Demand

More than a third of all SVOD (39%) and TVOD (33%) services in Europe are owned by U.S. companies.

Eight of the top 10 on-demand providers in Europe have U.S. owners. The most well-represented among them by territory are Netflix (40), Amazon Prime Video (39), Comcast (37), and The Walt Disney Company (35).

Programming for children makes up 4% of SVOD catalogs in Europe. Where American tv broadcaster catalogs featured a much higher percentage of kids’ programming than their European counterparts, the same cannot be said for streamers. That 4% figure is identical for both foreign and domestic SVOD providers.