France: SVoD levy decree operative July 1
June 24, 2021
From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris
SVoD services Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video will soon be obliged to dedicate between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of their annual turnover to content creation in France.
The decree relates to on-demand audiovisual media services and streamers, whether they are French or foreign platforms, and has been published in the French government’s Journal Officiel. The AVMS Euro Directive will become operative on July 1st.
“On-demand audiovisual media services will have to dedicate at least 20 per cent of the revenues generated in France to finance the production of European and French TV and movie content,” advised France’s Culture ministry, adding that his rate will be raised to 25 per cent for services offering films newer than twelve months.
This last detail anticipates the ongoing reform of the windowing agreement that should allow streamers to run movies twelve months after their theatrical releases; they currently have to wait 36 months.
This new agreement of the media chronology is being negotiated and presented as a compensation planned by French government to the transposition of the AVMS Directive.
The streamers’ contribution share between movie and TV works will be fixed by regulatory body CSA through a convention. Each genre will have to account for 20 per cent (at least) of the global requirement.
A significant share of this contribution will go to the independent production sector. On this point, the contribution model will be definitively set out once DTT and Cabsat decrees, which outline the financing requirements asked to French broadcasters will be revised and issued. Negotiations are currently ongoing.
Regulator CSA has suggested it will be mindful to correct the current regulatory asymmetry existing among audiovisual media services to serve the competitivity of national players and the financing of content creation.