The Generalitat presses for Netflix to provide financing to TV3
Claims related to the protection of Catalan in the new General Audiovisual Law have dominated the discourse of the pro-independence spokespersons in recent weeks. However, the Generalitat has carried out different maneuvers to ensure that the new legal text benefits Catalonia as much as possible.
So much so that the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia -controlled by the regional government- has pressed for the new law to force Netflix to finance the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation (CCMA) with part of its billing in Spain.
Specifically, the organization demands that the 1.5% that the audiovisual operators of on-demand content will contribute to finance Radiotelevisión Española also irrigate the regional channels and, therefore, benefit TV3.
The amount would be symbolic, given that Netflix barely pays taxes in this country a part of its profits; However, this measure of pressure could condition the development of the new RTVE Financing Law, which is expected to go ahead in 2022 and whose new text is expected to benefit the CCMA.
In fact, FORTA sources stress that this maneuver is intended for regional television stations to come under the umbrella of the measures that can be taken in the RTVE Law, so that they can also access new financing channels after the 'collapse' of advertising revenue they have suffered in the last decade.
The regional audiovisual regulators -they add- will be used as a lever to put pressure on parliamentary groups in this regard, with the aim that the channels of each autonomous community can access new forms of financing, these informants point out.
How to Promote Alternative Dispute Resolution Services https://t.co/kykSVg7cex
— wikiHow Relationship Fri Sep 23 17:36:42 +0000 2016
It must be taken into account that RTVE currently earns about 125 million euros through the tax that the State charges to telecommunications operators. However, the new law will exempt these companies from maintaining public television as of 2022 and, according to internal calculations of the corporation, the collection that will be obtained from the billing of Netflix, HBO and company is 7 million per year.
ERC boasts of the result of the negotiation
In this context of parliamentary processing, this Wednesday ERC announced an agreement with the Government to approve the text of the draft of the General Audiovisual Law, after having negotiated an estimated item of 15 million euros per year for productions in Catalan.
The text also provides for the creation of a fund for the dubbing and subtitling into Catalan of the series on on-demand audiovisual content platforms. "This will guarantee that premieres like El Juego del Squid are dubbed into Catalan," the party said.
The Republicans also stress that 6% of the platforms' catalog -here they also add Movistar, Atresplayer and Mitele- should be offered in Catalan, as well as 15% of RTVE productions.
During the last few weeks, various outlets have speculated that Netflix could resort to the European courts of justice to try to prevent the law from forcing it to offer a 'Catalan quota', since it would contravene the content of the European audiovisual communication directive.
In this sense, it is noteworthy that the president of the CAC, Roger Loppacher -a former CiU officer- has defined the minimum figure of 6% as "low", which, by the way, is currently met only by Filmin, based in Barcelona .
