Stelios Haji-Ioannou opened his first EasyCinema in Milton Keynes in May this year. He has been quick to learn that the European movie business is not the same as the European airline industry.

The EasyCinema business model is based on offering distributors a flat rate in return for showing first-run films.

However, the film distributors have been unwilling to let EasyCinema, with its online ticket sales starting as low as 20p, have access to any first-run blockbusters for fear of potential profit loss during the critical first week of a film's run. The UK premiere of Terminator 3, for example, was held on July 21 but EasyCinema will not be allowed to show it until September 5.

EasyCinema has responded by accusing the main distributors - Columbia TriStar, Disney, Fox, Warners and Universal Paramount - of operating a cartel and instructed its lawyers to take up the matter with the office of fair trading.

As Stelios should know, successful delivery of a product to market is composed of three main parts: creating the merchandise, having the means to deliver it and encouraging enough consumers to consume it to make it into a profitable venture.

So, who are the winners and losers in the European movie business when it comes to production, distribution and attracting the customer?

According to ScreenDigest, across almost all of the major European movie markets, locally made films' share of the market fell in 2002. The biggest loser was Britain. In 2001, UK-produced films accounted for 24% of box office takings whereas in 2002, that figure fell to 15%. At the same time, the Nordic markets of Sweden and Norway also suffered heavy falls.

Norway's share fell by half, and for the Swedish film industry it was the worst performance in the home market for at least six years.

French film producers also lost market share but, with local titles accounting for 35% of its home market, France remains the most successful of any European market. American-produced films nonetheless accounted for 61% of all films watched by the French cinema-goers.

This will not make happy reading for European government departments responsible for developing domestic film for consumption in their own markets. Neither new nor old Europe is able to resist the US juggernaut.

In Britain alone, the top 10 grossing films took in excess of £350m at the box office in 2002. The American studios were involved in every production - either as sole producer in the case of Monsters Inc and Spider-Man: The Movie - or in association with another intellectual property rights company in the case of the second instalments of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

If we turn our attention to where audiences see films, while video and DVD provide the greatest return on investment to the major American film studios, multiplexes are to be the place to see first-run movies.

The multiplex now accounts for nearly 50% of all screens across Europe. In mature markets, such as Britain and France, they are invariably US-owned. The country with the biggest number is the UK, which has seen an increase in multiplexes' share of all screens between 1992 and 2002 from 41% to 66%.

In addition, there is trend towards an oligopoly in most of the mature markets across Europe. In Britain and Belgium, the leading five exhibitors control just under two thirds of all screens. Only in Italy, which has some interesting local features brought about by a combination of bureaucracy, industry structure and cinema-going habits, do the top five exhibitors represent some 14% of all screens.

In less developed markets, such as Hungary, Poland and Sweden, the Americans establish local alliances in order to open up these territories.

Cinema audiences represent something that the film industry and government should be happy about. Box office receipts in Europe were €5.7bn (£4bn) for 2002 and, says David Hancock, a senior analyst at ScreenDigest, "that figure will reach €7.4bn in 2007", a growth rate of 29.8%.

He goes on to argue: "Admissions in the EU will hit one billion in 2005, rising from 910m in 2002." In Britain, for the top 20 films at the box office, nearly 70% of the audience was aged under 35, drawn disproportionately from the AB social group, with 21% of the population accounting for 28% of the cinema visits, according to figures released by the UK Film Council.

Britain is a nation of cinema goers. Most of us - 71% - went to the cinema at least once in 2002, and 26% went once a month or more.

So these results and industry forecasts tell us that more people are watching movies right across Europe; they are watching their favourite films in American-owned multiplexes, being fed a staple diet of American content while drinking Coca-Cola and eating popcorn. New or old Europe, it's just the same to the American movie business: just another territory to conquer.

EasyCinema has a point. Whether it stays in business long enough to prove it is another matter.

· Nigel Culkin and Keith Randle are members of the Film Industry Research Group (firg@herts.ac.uk), University of Hertfordshire