production
Class European platform policies
Building blocks
Goals
Understand dynamics and struggles of European audiovisual market
Be able to identify different types of support for audiovisual industries
Identify and assess impacts of on-demand audiovisual players on
Europe
Provide detailed insights on the specific mechanisms put in place on the
EU and national level to deal with these impacts
Be able to critically reflect on the importance and impact of existing
policies and policy measures
Context
Audiovisual market
Characteristics
→ there is no one EU market, it consists of a lot of markets
Fragmentation
Lot of co-production between countries (mostly in arthouse film)
→ bc of higher budget & bigger market possibility
Aim often only for domestic markets
Tv market has strong reliance on public broadcasters
→ public broadcaster = main investor in original content
Necessity for public funding bc of small markets
→ eg investment obligations, tax shelter, …
Case 1: European audiovisual production 1
, → creation of competition bc all markets try to be most attractive place
for filming
Public vs private media
→ public = funded to focus on national audiences, now bc of netflix
more focus on international
Production market = small & fragmented
→ no studios like in US
→ means there is little investment & private money going into film
→ limited risk taking
Distribution = fragmented
→ need for a local distributor to bring eg Polish film to Belgium
US = 600 movies per year, EU = 1200 per year
→ does investing more in local production make a difference in viewing
habits?
→ invest more in distribution & promotion
US domination
→ cultural accessibility, ease of language, dominant distribution model,
bigger budgets
→ problem = from economic pov EU lacks scale to compete, issue of
cultural diversity
Identification of the problem ⇒ there is no real European audiovisual
market
Audiovisual products = cultural & economic importance
Fragmentation of several different-sized and culturally different markets
General lack of scale
Fewer players
Smaller home market
Tradition of nationally oriented broadcasters and domestic rather than
EU focus + US dominance in multi-market players
Viscious circle = small market = small home audience = small revenue =
small budget = less export capacity = dependence on public funding
Difference between national markets
→ eg Spain & France produce lots bc bigger home market
Case 1: European audiovisual production 2