With Breathless Abandon New TV Rules Adopted

Michael Hedges October 8, 2018 - Follow on Twitter

Ask a person to close their eyes and think of culture their senses are likely drawn to memories; usually pleasant or comforting and always emotional. People adopt culture based on ethnicity, geography and whatever spiritual context is relevant. It is learned and represents an inherent identity. We think of works of art, languages, even behaviors as culturally significant.

Pop culture is a bit different. The cheesy TV shows and films, forgettable music and DJ patter on radio follow in the same tradition as tabloid newspapers churning out UFO and monster of the deep exposés. That’s entertainment. It’s OK. Everybody needs relief from the daily grind.

Culture - high and low - has economic value, more so as it flows easily and quickly from one part of the world to another. People like this. The flows change and shift. People like this, too. To accommodate this lawyers study intellectual property rights, which also changes and shifts.

The long debated revision of Europe’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), the rules under which all media - except print - must adhere, reached the final stretch this past week before the finish line. Meeting in their Strasbourg domain members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted overwhelmingly to approve politically expedient measures; protect children from bad stuff online, protect everybody from too many ads on traditional TV broadcasters and push cultural expediency onto online media, largely foreign. The European Commission proposed all of this in September. The European Council will now take a look, probably waving it on. Then the 27 EU member states - the United Kingdom Brexiting - are required to fit the Directive into national law.

The AVMSD is meant to correct "the current unacceptable imbalance between the rights and duties of the different actors of the linear and nonlinear audiovisual system in Europe, as well as the parasitic and oligopolistic role of many global operators on the Internet,” said Italian MEP and culture committee member Silvia Costa, quoted by primaonline.it (October 3). In short, online media accessible within the European Union (EU) will be held accountable for “cultural diversity” by ensuring at least 30% of their catalogues “should be European.” In addition, “video-on-demand platforms are also asked to contribute to the development of European audiovisual productions, either by investing directly in content or by contributing to national funds,” said the EuroParl statement (October 2).

All of this was clearly telegraphed last April, when the AVMSD draft was circulated by the European Commission. Netflix and Amazon Prime - big targets of cultural ire - dutifully raised their European productions and strategically opened offices around the continent. Netflix has a production hub in the UK and others are in development. To ward off feared content dumping the new AVMSD rules require "visibility and prominence” in the video-on-demand catalogues.

Not all MEPs supported the measure. “That at least 30% of the content of streaming services such as HBO and Netflix should be produced in the (European) Union is protectionist and non-innovative,” said Swedish MEP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, who voted against, quoted by euractiv.com (October 4). “Quantity does not mean quality or growth.”

As with most grand legislative devices, the AVMSD will be out of date as soon as it is in force, sometime in 2020. Conversion to 5G mobile technology will be fully underway, bring more, better and faster to consumers still trying to use those smartphones. The internet as they knew it will be something else, in the cloud or somewhere. Traditional media will be discarded like space debris.

See also...

• Hot Topics - EU Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AVMS)

• Hot Topics - Streaming Media