Julia Stoll
Research expert covering TV and video media
Ad-supported video-on-demand market in Europe - statistics & facts
In Europe, video-on-demand has mainly established itself in the form of subscription-based offers. In contrast, advertising-financed streaming plays a much more important role in the United States. Although some European companies, especially broadcasters, have also by now established corresponding offers, so-called ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) is still a nascent market in Europe. Latest figures on the European AVOD market, however, promise enormous potential there as well, with revenue in Western Europe, for instance, estimated to be two times higher in 2028 than five years earlier. Additionally, the pace of subscription video-on-demand in Western European countries is forecast to slow down in the upcoming years.
Which European country leads the AVOD market?
Each country in Europe contributes to the expansion of the continent’s ad-supported video-on-demand market. Not only is AVOD revenue increasing in all regions, but also digital video advertising spending in general. From 2021 to 2022, digital video ad spending in Europe grew by more than two billion U.S. dollars, with the UK being by far the market leader. Furthermore, the UK ranked third worldwide among countries with the highest AVOD revenues in 2022 and thus tops Europe’s ad-supported video-on-demand market. Forecasts also show that AVOD revenue in the UK will nearly double between 2022 and 2028.Most watched AVOD services in Europe
The European AVOD market is dominated by American YouTube. However, in recent years the service had to forfeit its pole position as other platforms, especially local ad-funded broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) services, have entered the market. BVOD services are provided by broadcasters and are mostly exclusively available in their respective countries. As they are usually well known by their audiences, they often have a high reach. While BVOD reached 60 percent of connected TV (CTV) viewers in selected Western European countries, the share of people using pure AVOD services, such as Pluto TV and Roku, amounted to 28 percent in 2022. However, U.S.-based providers have recently tried to increase their audience reaches in Europe as well. Pluto TV, for example, has already been made available in a few European countries, in particular through existing streaming platforms. Given the additional fact that AVOD provides free content in an inflationary environment, AVOD could soon become a mass phenomenon in Europe either.
