European Commission
MEMO
Brussels, 25 October 2012
10 facts about media and content industries
1. Digitization has increased book sales. Expenditure on
electronic books almost doubled each year in 2006-2010 but
still amounts to only 3% of global book sales.
Forecasts however predict that revenues from e-books in
2008-2014 will go from less than 1% to nearly 9% in the
five largest European markets, from less than 1% to around
17% in the US and from 2% to around 8% in Japan.
2. The internet has become the second preferred choice for
news consumption after television.
Print remains the main revenue driver for newspaper
publishers. Although digital advertising income has
increased, it amounted to only 7% globally in 2010.
3. On average, 70% of recorded music consumed in the
USA, UK, France and Germany (four of the largest music
markets worldwide) is consumed through the internet or
other digital platforms.
However, revenues from digital sources in these countries
account for only 35% of the total of recorded music sales.
4. Digital spending (acquisition of media products in
digital format) tripled from 2006 to 2010
worldwide and is growing steadily, although it still
represents a low share of global sales.
Recorded music has the biggest share, with 30% of its
global sales being digital in 2010.
5. The European publishing industry is the largest in the
world and encompasses a total of 83 472 firms.
The largest sub-sectors in terms of number of firms are
book publishers (31 813 or 38.1%) and journal and magazine
publishers (18 975 or 22.7%). Newspapers publishers is the
smallest sub-sector, with only 9 006 firms in the EU27
(less than 11% of the total).
6. The general decline in the sales of printed press did
not coincide with digitization.
In most cases it started earlier due to changing patterns
of consumption and may also be the result of a more
competitive market with reduced profit margins and
decreasing prices.
7. While general expenditure between 1997 and 2012 on
advertising show an average growth of 37%, newspaper
advertising showed an average negative growth of -7.8%.
This indicates that the newspaper sector is witnessing a
more structural and serious decline in advertising income,
whereas the decline in TV and internet advertising revenues
is probably mainly a result of shrinking advertising
budgets due to the economic crisis and not to decreasing
audiences or shifts in advertising budgets to other media.
8. In the media and content sector power has shifted from
the production of content to its distribution.
The total sector (global telecoms, media and technology)
accounts for 920 billion euros and saw an average yearly
increase of 8% between 2006 and 2010. Growth in the content
sector is slower, at an average of 4.9% per year.
9. The EU is reducing its leading position in the overall
media landscape.
It had five companies in the top 15 media companies in the
world in 1988, four in 1998 and only three in 2008.
10. The internet sector is expected to grow at a
compoundrate of 13% up to 2015.
Society is moving toward a five-screen world: TV, PC, game
consoles, and mobile devices (smartphones or tablets).
Mobile became a significant way to distribute games, news,
music and is one the fastest growing platforms to provide
such contents and assorted services.
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