Arvester data included in the CNC’s annual VOD observatory

The CNC's VOD market observatory is getting an update this year. On top of presenting data on the demographics of VOD subscribers and the place of French films and series in VOD catalogues, it now includes our data on the visibility of French titles on VOD interfaces.

Every week from early December 2023 to early January 2024, we looked at the homepages of Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ with the goal of analysing how visible French titles¹ were. The CNC has known the share of French titles in VOD catalogues for years, but they remained frustrated at not knowing which of those titles were given prominence on those services, and how French productions fared against other countries. For us, working for the CNC was an opportunity to apply our methodology on a macro level, meaning not only operating on a per-title basis but also looking at the entirety of French-produced titles. Here is what we learned.

It should first be noted that the design of the interface is somewhat different from one service to another. This is particularly obvious when you compare the homepages of Netflix and Prime Video. Netflix's homepage contains about 1400 thumbnails, while Prime Video shows over 4000.

Our analysis shows quite clearly the differing strategies adopted by each streamer when it comes to the prominence of films and series. While Netflix tends to award greater prominence to series, Prime Video does the opposite. Overall, series were 3.5 times more prominent than movies on the Netflix homepage. It's the other way round on Prime Video, where movies were 2.3 more prominent than series. Disney+ sits in the middle, with a more balanced approach to the visibility of films versus series.

Also of note is the ranking of the most visible countries of production. American content is given greater prominence on all three platforms, as was expected given the sheer volume that US productions occupy in their catalogues. France is in close second on all three services, followed by the UK. This shows a strong commitment to the promotion of local content on the part of Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. Of the three streamers, Netflix is the one where the gap in visibility between US-produced and French-produced titles is the narrowest.

An analysis of the 10 most visible French works over the period reveals major differences in prominence strategies. Prime Video highlights French comedians, while Netflix focuses on series. Kamel Guemra's French series Blood Coast is in fact so prominent that it is also in the top 10 for all nationalities combined,² ahead of Stranger Things and The Witcher. Arthur Sanigou's film Dealing with Christmas, available on Prime Video, is also in the top 10 for all nationalities, in second place.

We would like to thank Cécile Lacoue, Director of Studies at the CNC, and her team for their confidence. We look forward to continuing this work next year.

🔗 Access the full presentation here.