July 5, 2016

The study, entitled “Exploitation of Film Heritage Works in the Digital Era” looks at the market challenges of film heritage works in the digital context.  The study examined whether they were included in Video on Demand (VOD) catalogues, what visibility they had amongst newly released films, and what the main hurdles were for their pan-European distribution.

One of the key findings of the study was that, to some extent, European heritage films face similar challenges to those of European art-house films: securing a presence on VOD platforms, increasing circulation at European level, promoting non-national European films and developing demand.

Further, many of the problems faced by heritage films also concern European art-house films:

• European film heritage works tend to circulate poorly across Europe, even in the festival circuit;
• theatrical re-releases of film heritage works might help films gain access to VOD platforms, but this might not be enough as, on the one hand, the market is fragmented and, on the other, a threshold catalogue size is needed to deal with the largest on-demand platforms; and
• VOD cannot be dealt with completely separately from other platforms, both for economic and promotional reasons.

To read the Commission’s press release and to access the study, click here.