Streaming Europe

Streaming Europe explores how global streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video have reshaped the audiovisual landscape across Europe.

Since Netflix’s arrival in 2012, the European media environment has undergone a rapid transformation, affecting every level of the industry―from production and distribution to policy and audience engagement. This book offers the first comprehensive, empirical, and comparative examination of these changes across different European markets. Written by a team of leading media scholars, it balances accessible analysis with evidence-based insights to examine how streamers have altered production practices and business models, shifted established power dynamics, and challenged long-standing broadcasting legacies. The book examines global streamers’ market-entry strategies, the use of diversity and inclusion as competitive positioning, and the tensions between producers over rights retention and local authenticity. It analyses how public and commercial broadcasters across large and small European markets have both emulated Netflix and sought to differentiate themselves from US streamers, and how governments have responded with a patchwork of policy tools such as prominence regulation, quotas, and investment obligations, raising questions about their long-term effectiveness. Finally, it explores how different genres―including teen drama, documentary, European film, scripted television, and web series―both shape and are shaped by global streamers’ evolving strategies.

With its strong foundation in research and pan-European scope, Streaming Europe goes beyond single-country perspectives to present a timely and nuanced understanding of how the streaming revolution is shaping Europe’s cultural industries. It will be highly relevant to researchers in the field of media industries, media economics, audiovisual industries and media policy.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Tim Raats is an Associate Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. He is head of the Media Economics and Policy unit at imec-SMIT-VUB (Studies on Media, Innovation and Technology) and specialises in policy and market research, with a particular focus on financing and production in small audiovisual markets, and management and policy challenges for public service media.

Catalina Iordache is a Senior Researcher and Guest Professor at imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. Her research focuses on media industries studies, public service media, and European audiovisual policy. She holds a PhD from the VUB (2022) and bridges scholarly research with project management (in 2026, the MSCA RePIM Doctoral Network) and (post) graduate teaching.