Last week’s announcement that the Discovery Channel will be closing its European hub in London may be the start of a much larger trend, if the government continues down the road to a hard Brexit and fails to secure the same terms for EU-wide broadcasters that we currently enjoy.
As an EU member state, TV broadcasters in the UK have benefitted from EU country of origin rules since the 1990s. Put simply, this rule means that if a TV company is licensed by one national authority, in our case OFCOM, it can broadcast to all EU Member States.
The vast majority of international TV companies have their European bases in London, including Discover, Disney, 21st Century Fox, and of course BBC World News. The concentration of creative talent and the ability to do business in English, has attracted US TV companies in particular to London. Currently OFCOM estimates that over 400 TV broadcasters are licensed to broadcast across the EU from London.
It would therefore seem nonsensical that the government’s position, as set out by Theresa May in her Mansion House speech in March, is to end the UK’s participation in the Country of Origin regime. Instead, the government hopes to secure mutual recognition of broadcasters in much the same way as they want to achieve this for the banking sector.
It is likely that the EU side will see this as cherry-picking. The government wants to end free movement and the jurisdiction of the ECJ, two key pillars in the functioning of the single market, and yet maintain a preferential arrangement for key sectors such as television and banking.
Discovery, for their part, has stated that their decision to close their London base has nothing to do with Brexit uncertainty. However, their motivation to “move to a more agile operational technology model” most likely shows their real intentions. In the absence of commitment to the broadcasting sector from the government, they have put their contingency plan into action.
The government continues to live in fantasy world, negotiating with itself between options which are completely unacceptable to the 27 EU Member States. Until the government comes up with workable solutions, Discovery will not be the only TV company looking into contingency plans.
European Single Market
Cheaper to Watch Football, but What About Cricket?
Labour PartyThe European Court of Justice (ECJ) recently made a ruling on broadcasting rights for sporting events that could have serious effects on minority sports across Europe, including cricket.
At the moment broadcasting rights for sport in Europe are sold on a ‘territorial’ (country by country) basis. They are also sold on an ‘exclusive’ basis, which means that only one broadcaster in each country is allowed to broadcast the event. Understandably the rights are sold at different prices in each territory since, for instance, Greek broadcasters are unlikely to pay as much for English football as British ones. The system works using ‘decoder cards’ which, once a subscription is paid to your territories service provider, allows you to access their channels through a satellite dish.
What has happened in this instance is that a British publican has used a Greek ‘decoder card’ to access Premier League games for far less than they would have to pay for subscription to a British provider. The Premier League has brought a case against them as they believe that this infringes their right to sell their product on a country by country basis. The ECJ has ruled that this ‘territorial exclusivity’ goes against the principles of the European Single Market and that decoder cards can be legally traded across member state boundaries. So the victory goes to the pub owner.
Now you are unlikely to hear me standing up for the rights of the megalithic Premier League or BSkyB, they are big enough and tough enough to do that for themselves. I’m also uncomfortable with the notion of such a big organisation with limitless resources suing an independent pub owner. Having said that, this ruling, in my opinion, does no one any good at all.
It would mean less money for all sports who sell their broadcasting rights. If there are no ‘exclusive’ rights, then broadcasters would pay far less money. It would mean a significant loss of cultural diversity, if there are no ‘territorial’ restrictions then you could have a ‘one-size fits all’ European system. Big sports could still sell on a big ‘European’ system (football is popular everywhere). But smaller sports such as ski-jumping, cricket, curling, or cycling, would not be able to make enough money from selling to the whole of Europe. Smaller broadcasters would not be able to afford the cost of ‘European’ rights. They would not be able to compete, which would mean a monopolistic advantage for the biggest broadcasters in Europe.
So we could see cricket losing a lot its money, similarly handball in France and the Scandinavian countries. This would be bad for sport and bad cultural diversity.
Getting Creative with Creative Rights
Labour Party
I had the pleasure of being invited to take part in a panel discussion at a conference run by the EU Observer, called Online Content and Creative Rights. The discussion was entitled ‘Get paid when you get played’ and I shared the platform with Liberal MEP Cecilia Wilkström, Jörg Evers, Chairperson of GEMA, and Jean-Eric De Cockborne from the European Commission. The debate focused on what we as legislators could do to tackle this important and difficult issue while Mr. Evers provided an industry perspective.
It was an enlightening debate, one that brought in to sharp relief the complex nature of the problem. The Reflections paper released by the European Commission has suggested that there be a single European Market for copyright, with big international collecting societies providing a “one stop shop” for everyone – from i-Tunes to BBC Radio 1 – wishing to purchase a license to play or distribute music. This sounds like a perfectly sensible and workable idea, especially when you think about the current situation where rights to music have to be negotiated on a country by country basis, meaning that some music available in one country won’t be available in another. This can encourage piracy, since if a song is not available legally in a particular country then some would simply look for an alternative, most likely illegal, source on the internet.
But this single market idea does have a lot of problems, especially when you consider cultural diversity, something that the European Parliament is very keen to protect. Artists and creators from smaller member states or more niche markets might get lost or forgotten in a huge, pan-European system. So already a difficult question and we haven’t even started talking properly about piracy yet. Needless to say when we were asked questions by the floor, a great many forthright views were expressed. It was very useful for me and my fellow legislators to see the strength and diversity of feeling on these issues.
The Labour Government is introducing some very good legislation at the moment which is going to tackle this issue head on, punishing those who download and upload content illegally. I hope that we can be as constructive at the European level. This is one of the big issues in the Culture and Education Committee, and as the Coordinator for the S&D group, I will be working with my colleagues to make sure we find the right solution. The internet has meant that the old way of doing things for collecting societies and the record industry is now quickly becoming obsolete, so it is up to them as well as us here in the Parliament to find solutions. It is time for us all to get creative with creative rights.
I did an interview for the EU Observer website afterwards which you can find here, along with a number of other interviews from people speaking at the conference.
