A report analyses the Spanish films and series available on the main US video services
2/1/24
The US video-on-demand company with the largest number of Spanish films and series in its catalogue is Prime Video (751 titles), followed by Netflix (575), HBO Max (196), Disney+ (116) and Apple TV+ (3). This data comes from a report carried out by researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) that analyses the availability and prominence of Spanish audiovisual works, in 2023, in these five US subscription video on demand (SVOD) services operating in Spain.
Together, these services offer a total of 1,641 Spanish titles, including 187 works available in two or more catalogues and international co-productions involving national companies. If we compare the number of Spanish titles offered with the total number of works in each catalogue, Prime Video and HBO Max are the services with the highest percentages of Spanish works in their catalogues, with 15% and 12%, respectively. In the case of Netflix, although its catalogue contains a significant number of Spanish works (575 titles), its proportion of the total is around 8%. Finally, in the Disney+ catalogue, Spanish works represent 5%, while on Apple TV+, its three Spanish-US co-productions represent 2% of the total works on offer.
“Another notable finding in this work has to do with the production date of the Spanish works that are available within the services. And here what we have been able to confirm is that the vast majority are recent productions, especially in the 2010s,” explains one of the authors of the report, Pedro Gallo, from the Audiovisual Diversity research group in UC3M's Communication Department. “This could have to do with the fact that these companies are not limited exclusively to acquiring and distributing already produced works, but that they seem to be increasingly interested in producing their own works,” says Gallo.
The researchers have also observed that international co-production (considered as 'Spanish works', also films and series produced through agreements with other countries), is also very important among the works available in the catalogues analysed. In this sense, they have found that Argentina and France are the countries with which Spanish works that are available in the Netflix or Amazon Prime Video catalogues, for example, are most frequently produced.
Another concept that this report analyses is the prominence given to Spanish works in the services, that is, some of the mechanisms that determine how easy it is for a user to find certain works and not others. And what it confirms is that such mechanisms for highlighting the presence of Spanish works have ample room for improvement. Netflix is the only service that has sections dedicated to Spanish films and series, which can be accessed via the top navigation bar of the interface (menu) and the carousels on the homepage. In contrast, the rest of the services offer varied results regarding the existence and location of these types of sections.
This report is part of the research project “Diversidad y servicios audiovisuales bajo demanda por suscripción (Diversity and subscription-based on-demand audiovisual services) (ref.: PID2019-109639RB-I00)” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the State Research Agency (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) and carried out with the support of the Spanish Film University Institute (IUCE-UC3M).
More information: Albornoz, Luis A., García Leiva, María Trinidad, y Gallo, Pedro (2023). Disponibilidad y prominencia de obra española en servicios audiovisuales por suscripción (Availability and prominence of Spanish works in subscription-based audiovisual services). 2023 Edition. Audiovisual Diversity Research Group, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, pp. 1-33. ISBN: 978-84-16829-89-7. https://diversidadaudiovisual.org/disponibilidad-y-prominencia-de-obra-espanola-en-servicios-audiovisuales-por-s uscripcion-edicion-2023/
