Video on demand services have signed with the Audiovisual Audiovisual Council of Conventions that set local series financing obligations.
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“This is an important moment for the French cultural exception,” says Roch-Olivier Maistre, the President of the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA), about the signing, Thursday, December 9, agreements On the financing of creation with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney + and Apple TV +. These subscription-on-demand video services will devote 20% of their turnover in France to French or European series, films and programs, ie “250 to 300 million euros per year” from 2022.
“This is a crucial step, when streaming is growing strongly. The model had to be adapted to rebalance the obligations between new entrants and historical chains,” continued the President of the CSA. Of TF1 to France Télévisions, via Canal +, these groups bring to the sector about one billion euros a year.
US platforms will spend 16% of their turnover into audiovisual programs (between 200 and 240 million euros per year) and 4% in cinema (from 50 to 60 million euros). This distribution was provided by the Audiovisual Media Services (SMAD) decree adopted in June, application of the European Directive of 2018, transposed in France in 2020. The agreements are concluded for three years.
Netflix will be by far the biggest contributor, with a contribution around 200 million euros. “We are pleased with the signing of this agreement that is part of the constructive and contributory approach that has always been ours,” reacted the company. Located in the hex since the end of 2014, it targets 40 French productions per year, compared with 27 in 2021, 21 in 2020 and 20 between 2014 and 2019.
“Divergences of legal interpretation”
The case of Amazon Prime Video was more thorny because it represented a turnover problem: “This service posed a particular difficulty because it is integrated into a composite offer,” said Maistre. Indeed, the video offer is included in the bouquet prevail with the right to fast delivery and music services, video games or books, for a price of 49 euros per year or 5.99 euros per month. Many, in the sector, therefore feared that Amazon Premium bonds are undervalued.
The American company has first proposed a “cost-based assessment method” of premium video, which would have generated “a contribution of 10 million euros per year”, reports the CSA. The regulator refused and threatened to calculate the amount from the entire premium turnover, as the decree allowed, which would have resulted in 60 million euros per year. The “negotiation” finally made it possible to set a “guaranteed minimum of 40 million euros per year or a rate of 30% of the premium turnover, if this amount exceeds the minimum”, welcomed the CSA.
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