As Catherine Martin prepares to leave office once a new government is formed, the introduction of one measure with the potential to secure her legacy as Minister for Media hangs in the balance.
Martin, in her time as Minister, laid the legislative groundwork for the implementation of a content levy – sometimes dubbed a “Netflix levy” – on streaming services and pay-TV companies operating in the Irish market. Such a levy has yet to receive the green light but one could still form an uplifting coda to her ministerial career.
The leadership of regulator Coimisiún na Meán, which Martin charged with assessing the practicalities of the proposed levy, will soon consider the findings of its viability report on how one might or might not work here.
It’s a cliffhanger moment for the Irish screen industry. A content levy could become the rising star of the media funding ecosystem, boosting Irish cultural fortunes and delivering fresh influxes of money to a business where the struggle to get anything made is perennial.
The advent of a levy would fairly reflect a dramatic shift in the power dynamics of the audiovisual business and make a material difference to Irish screen storytellers.
It could also help rewrite an over-familiar script: as sensible media policies in 2024 go, arguments about how the declining pot of television licence fee receipts should be divvied up doesn’t cut it any more.
It was back in May 2022 when a cross-industry alliance called the Joint Creative Audiovisual Sectoral Group warned that Ireland was in danger of falling behind the rest of the EU if it didn’t introduce a content levy.
The group – which comprised Screen Producers Ireland, Animation Ireland, RTÉ, TG4, Writers Guild of Ireland, Screen Directors Guild of Ireland and Screen Composers Guild of Ireland – cited estimates from consultants Indecon that a levy of 3 per cent on the turnover of pay-TV and subscription video-on-demand services could bring in a minimum of €25 million a year.
Indecon suggested this could result in €100 million of production activity annually. In other words, the sums involved would be a real stimulus for getting Irish stories on screen.
The origin story for levy-talk lies in the EU’s revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which since late 2018 has permitted member states to impose financial obligations on media service providers that are based elsewhere, but target their audiences.
Several EU states promptly brought in turnover levies – charging international companies a tax based on a percentage of their revenues in that market – and/or devised policies whereby the streamers and pay-TV companies were obliged to invest a certain amount in the local industry.
But the initial draft of the Government’s Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, tasked with transposing the revised directive into Irish law, omitted any references to a content levy or investment obligation.
The breakthrough came in November 2022, when Martin introduced a number of amendments to that sweeping piece of legislation as it reached its final stages. Some related to a mooted levy. Independent production companies would receive “not less than 80 per cent” of the funds generated, it was stipulated, while at least 25 per cent of the money raised would be used to make programmes in the Irish language.
State development agency Screen Ireland would be given a role in the distribution of funds in partnership with Coimisiún na Meán, while the funds could also be used at the development stage of a project – exactly when financial support often proves most elusive for writers, directors and producers.
This was well received by the Irish industry. But with Coimisiún na Meán yet to be formally established at that time, never mind in a position to embark upon viability reports, the levy was still a theoretical, far-off concept.
In the meantime, with more EU countries following the example of France, Germany, Spain and others, the Government’s failure to support its domestic screen industry through a levy became something of an outlier.
Producers here aren’t the only ones waiting. In Australia proposals to establish an Australian content quota for streamers have repeatedly hit political roadblocks and delays, to the frustration of representative group Screen Producers Australia.
Among its recent concerns are reports that US-based streamers were arguing behind closed doors that Australia’s free trade agreement with the US gave the White House influence over how Australia regulates its services.
Screen Producers Association boss Matthew Deaner, on a visit to Dublin last month, was unequivocal: streamers are the most powerful and successful platforms in the screen business, but they take substantial revenue out of national industries without investing enough back in.
“We’ve got to follow where the eyeballs are and the dollars are and look to those platforms to contribute to our industry,” he said.
That same conviction is shared by many industry participants here, including Screen Ireland, which at the time hailed the “transformative potential” of Martin’s amendments, and Screen Producers Ireland, which has noted that every year the levy is not operational, tens of millions worth of potential investment in the sector is lost.
Martin’s continued keenness for the idea can be assumed from the fact a content levy was part of the Green Party manifesto, while the Labour Party, would-be coalition partners, proposed a levy of 5 per cent in its pre-election document.
Barring the plot twist of an outright rejection from Coimisiún na Meán, what happens next will depend on the next coalition’s willingness to see off any streamer pushback and proceed to basking in the cultural halo of an Irish content fund that comes at no cost to taxpayers.
Martin’s successor as minister for media can then take the credit for a policy she set in motion.
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