The new general audiovisual communication law, approved at first reading on May 26 in the Spanish Parliament, provoked a general outcry among independent producers. The text transposes, three years late, a European directive on the provision of audiovisual communication services. In passing, it modernizes the law in force which dates from 2010, and obliges video platforms, such as Netflix, HBO or Disney+, to allocate 5% of the income generated in Spain to the financing of European audiovisual works, including 70% of independent Spanish productions, whether shot in Castilian or in one of the official state languages (Catalan, Basque or Galician).
A priori, good news for the main concerned. Except that a controversy, relating to the definition of what is an independent producer, ignited the debate around the text. The one that the new law sets out in black and white includes those who produce films for platforms and other audiovisual content providers.
flip-flop
” More than 25,000 jobs are at risk, of which 17,000 could disappear and 7,000 become precarious”, denounced in a joint press release all the independent production houses of the kingdom, gathered in the Audiovisual Platform for Independent Production (PAP). She considers that the law “leaves talent and creators defenseless against large corporate conglomerates”. The Minister of Culture, the socialist Miquel Iceta, defended the progress made by the text and added, pragmatically: “Perhaps we are not advancing enough”, but, “in the worst case, we are not backing down”.
The Catalan separatist parties, which had negotiated the text in recent months, turned around and voted against. However, they had only obtained a minimum of 0.525% of the income of the “on-demand television audiovisual communication service providers” is used to finance films, series or documentaries in the regional language and that nearly 6% of their catalog offers works shot or dubbed in one of the regional languages. The radical left Unidas Podemos, which governs in coalition with the Socialists, abstained during the vote, as did the Popular Party (PP, right), which saved the text in extremis.