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Netflix and Stan could be forced to spend a share of their revenue on Australian content, under a proposal being considered by the recently installed minister for communications, Paul Fletcher.

On Wednesday Fletcher announced extra funding for regional news media to help it survive the coronavirus crisis emergency-inspired measures which may be too little too late, given that the virus disruption has already pushed teetering businesses over the edge.

But at the same time, Fletcher released an options paper examining the future of the screen industry, and that is a longer-term game.

While the release was given extra piquancy by the fact so many Australians are presently slumped in front of the box, it is a welcome sign that Fletcher, who replaced Mitch Fifield in the portfolio in May last year, is thinking strategically about longer-term media policy.

The options paper forms part of the governments response to the ACCC digital platforms inquiry report released last year and addresses one aspect of the legacy of decades in which Australia has not really had a media policy worthy of the name.

Successive governments have instead focused mostly on internet and telecommunications, while reacting knee-jerk to the shouts of media barons or freezing on the spot when those barons could not agree.

This options paper gives some cause for hope that those days may be over.

In a nutshell, the traditional free-to-air broadcasters are in decline, with revenue, influence and viewer numbers bleeding to new platforms. Streaming services the international behemoth Netflix and the locally owned Stan are increasingly dominating viewing habits.

Yet the traditional television broadcasters are loaded up with obligations, justified in previous times by the fact that they use a public asset, the broadcasting spectrum. These requirements have been out of date for at least a decade.

Specifically, traditional broadcasters must make and screen minimum amounts of Australian content, with additional quotas for local drama, documentary and childrens content. Netflix, Stan and the other streamers have no such obligations.

Its clearly unfair, and as the options paper spells out, is now so burdensome that it threatens the future of Australian stories which reflect who we are as a nation to ourselves and to the world ... The cultural significance of Australian content is not easily quantifiable, but it is highly recognisable. Three-quarters of Australians favour the government providing support to the Australian screen production industry, the paper says.

Australian screen content also contributes $5.34bn to the economy, and has knock-on positive effects on tourism and exports.

On the other side of the ledger, the government has traditionally provided both direct funding for Australian content and tax breaks for production.

Netflix and Stan have invested in Australian productions but not much and not many. Only 1.7% of Netflixs catalogue is Australian content, and even Stans offering is only 9% Australian.

Drama, documentary and childrens programming is cheap to buy overseas old foreign content can be imported for as little as $1,000 an hour, whereas making fresh programs costs between $500,000 to more than $1m an hour.

The options paper makes it clear that if the market was allowed to rip without government-set local content obligations, we would see next to no Australian drama and no Australian childrens content.

The options paper lays out four possible models and invites comment.

The first option is to do nothing.

Option two is to make minimal changes and seek to persuade streaming services to make Australian content on a voluntary basis (good luck with that), with some fine tuning to the existing regulations and some extra pressure on the ABC and SBS.

The third option and the one that seems to me best suited for the times is to put Netflix and Stan on the same footing as the traditional broadcasters.

All providers would be obliged to invest a percentage of their Australian revenue into new Australian content. This could be done either by making their own content or through contributions to an Australian production fund to be overseen by the existing federal government funding agency, Screen Australia.

There might also be extra tax breaks for childrens content and feature films, with a points system weighted to encourage local production and use of Australian talent.

There are some wriggles in here and some unanswered questions. For example, the ABC and SBS would be made to allocate funding specifically for Australian childrens programming. But the options paper doesnt say whether this would be additional funding or whether the ABC would have to find it from its already challenged budget.

So far, Fletcher has not addressed ABC funding a bitterly contested matter given how much some of his colleagues hate the national broadcaster. He has not responded to pleas for cuts to be reversed, reflecting the extra costs the ABC faced during the bushfire emergencies. Instead, he has encouraged the ABC to sell its Ultimo offices.

As it stands, if the ABC was faced with extra obligations for Australian childrens content, it would mean money would be bled from other areas, and would also represent a reduction in ABC independence and control over its own budget not good, at a time when journalism is so desperately challenged, as Fletchers support for regional journalism acknowledges.

The paper also doesnt address the issue of how Netflixs Australian revenue would be determined. As has been reported elsewhere, Netflix likes to pretend that its Australian operations dont really exist, thus avoiding tax.

Finally, the last option in the paper is complete deregulation, which as the paper makes clear would spell the near death of Australian stories on our screen. It seems this is not the favoured path.

Its a long way from an options paper to a media policy, but the evidence of strategic thought is welcome. What remains to be seen is how Fletcher will deal with the inevitable backlash, which this time will come not so much from the old media barons but from the new.

View post:
Real long-term thinking on TV would mean Netflix and Stan are treated the same as free-to-air - The Guardian