Number of TV households in France 2008-2017

In 2008, approximately 26.5 million households in France disposed of one television or more. In 2017, the number of French households owning at least one television amounted to 28.6 million. Due to the implementation of new broadcasting resolution technologies, such as the 4K UHD, and to the growing affordability of high-end televisions, this figure could increase in the coming years.

Streaming and Internet TV

The advent of Smart TVs seems to have increased people’s fondness for television. The possibility of accessing online content through a television brought about a new internet-based broadcasting system. Companies such as the American Netflix profited immensely from this new technology. In France alone, Netflix recorded a 31 percent coverage among youths aged 15 to 24 years in June 2018. Moreover, among the total French audience, Netflix’s coverage increased from 7,7 percent in October 2017 to 14,3 percent in May 2018. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom remains the leading Netflix market in Europe based on subscription numbers: almost 7 million people in the country subscribed to Netflix as of December 2017.

The future of European cinemas?

The expansion of Netflix and other streaming services in Europe seems to have had an ambivalent impact on the traditional cinema industry. Even though Germany is only slightly ahead of France in matters of internet TV penetration, the number cinema goers in Germany has decreased from a total of 135.9 million visitors in 2015 to only 100.1 million in 2018. Germany also happens to be the second leading market for Netflix in Europe. On the other hand, in France, there was an increasing number of cinema admissions recorded between 2013 and 2016.