LA SCREENINGS: Once a market where international broadcasters fought over big new releases for linear primetime schedules, the LA Screenings is now where they pick up library content and box sets for BVoD services, says Jack Davison at UK research firm 3Vision.

The role of the LA Screenings, and US content in general, is changing rapidly for broadcasters in Europe and the rest of the world.

Channels no longer travel to Hollywood to have bidding wars over new Homeland-style releases for their primetime linear slots. Instead, buyers are increasingly looking for content to stock associated BVoD services, according to UK research firm 3Vision.

Jack Davison

“There’s probably a lengthy discussion to be had about the actual place for US content in global markets and its potential dilution as a result of the growing local markets like Spain and elsewhere,” says 3Vision exec VP Jack Davison.

“But it’s maybe even simpler than that. When the studios started to hold on to their content and launch their own services, that changed the dynamic of the LA Screenings massively. [In some years] Disney had nothing to sell and others had very little to sell. And that was hugely impactful on what the LA Screenings meant and what its purpose was. But it’s definitely changing again; the studios are back and they’ve got content for sale.”

Davison says there is a job to work out which bit of the various studios’ content pipeline is for sale and in which windows, but they are definitely “open for business” again, he says.

As US studios count the cost of expensive originals, respondents to 3Vision’s Industry Trends & Predictions survey for 2025 also expected to see far more third-party licensing from the big players.

Studios are shifting their content distribution strategies, balancing direct-to-consumer services with third-party licensing. Consequently, 82% of respondents to the survey said they expected US studios will sell more content to third parties, post vertical integration, ensuring initial exclusivity while windowing to generate more revenues.

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Studios are expanding second-window activity to boost monetisation post SVoD. Some 75% of 3Vision respondents agreed that free-to-air TV will license more former SVoD originals in second windows, while 71% foresaw broader second-window availability across all services.

A hefty 70% of respondents believe US studios need to offer a better set of rights after SVoD to secure sales – no doubt referring to the box set rights that are now critical to broadcasters in addition to SVoD service providers.

After several years of decline, pressures to reduce costs and generate revenues showed clear signs that US studios are returning to selling content to third-party services in addition to growing their own SVoDs. According to 3Vision data, in key global markets, 40% of studio first-window premieres were on third-party services in 2024, up from 36% in the previous years.

Meanwhile, the buyers have changed too, or at least the bit of their operation they’re buying for. Most first-window sales are now to digital or online services, whereas in 2018 the majority was still going to the broadcasters’ primary channels.

Exclusive digital content premieres have gained prominence in the free TV landscape, with 66% of 3Vision respondents now considering them as most important, up from 59% last year. All areas received a positive response in the survey, but the areas that involved offering content in box set form free at the point of access all scored highest, clearly reflecting the priorities that respondents feel free TV operators should be focused on. It also mirrors what is happening in the broadcast world, with broadcasters in 2024 increasing all activity in this area.

3Vision’s study of free TV broadcasters in nine territories – the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Sweden and Mexico – showed that of those shows that got a broadcast premiere in 2024 only 9% were not accompanied with a box set on their broadcast’s digital service at any point. As recently as 2018 that was as high as 55%.

“The clients at the LA Screenings are now digital services that have got shelf space for box sets, rather than the old days when they had schedule slots, and not many of those,” Davison says.

“You can see it in the data from our tracking services last year. Netflix and Amazon back buying third-party content a lot more and some of that is from US studios that are now willing to share more content. So you see a lot of the Paramount originals like Halo now popping up on Netflix, the HBO shows, the MCU shows in the US.

“With that, on the second window side of things, there is lots more BVoD and broadcaster-adjacent activity: iPlayer, TF1+, ITVX, RTL+… At Content London, Paramount was quite open, saying its BVoD revenues in the UK were up four times over the past three years. When we talk about where US content is now finding its home, it slipped off-peak and primetime to off-peak on the primary service a few years ago. Now it has definitely moved again, on to the digital ITVX-type services, and you can see that in the data.”

3Vision’s figures show that in licensing market premieres of US/UK scripted TV series by type of service, there has been a significant increase in BVoD premieres in the second window, up to a new high of 18%.

Davison points out that while many of these BVoD services have reach in their local markets to rival that of Netflix and YouTube, the viewing figures don’t match and it’s this US library content and box sets that are helping to correct that.

“This acquisition of lots of box sets is a driver,” Davison says of the local BVoD platforms. “They’ve got to try and use that leverage they have in their reach to grow their viewing figures now, almost before it’s too late. Some of the numbers you see from the likes of M6 in France and ITV in the UK, which have done that most recent shift towards more volume, more library, more digital premieres, they’re talking very much about how it is driving their viewing.

“You only have to look at how, as soon as Netflix and Amazon had an opportunity to buy third-party [studio] content for considerably less than making their own original content, they’ve jumped at it. Look at the Nielsen charts in the US; they show this stuff delivers. It’s up there in the top tens ahead of some of their originals. So why spend US$100m on original production when you can buy something?”

Which brings us back to the LA Screenings and its evolving role in the New Content Economy.