Review of Certain Regulatory Policies For Online Audiovisual Services

Some major English-speaking territories (e.g., Australia, Canada, New Zealand) and many European countries (e.g. Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain) have brought in, are introducing or are considering regulation of online audiovisual services, mainly Video on Demand (VOD) but sometimes also Video Sharing Platforms (VSPs), with the aim to support their national screen industries, especially independent sectors. The measures include investment obligations, levies, rules around rights retention as well as quotas. Within the European Union and the European Economic Area, such interventions are governed by the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). Ahead of the ex-post evaluation of the AVMSD due from the European Commission by December 2026, there is already debate around the current set of interventions that are allowed by the AVMSD and some EU stakeholders will be pushing for revisions to the AVMSD interventions (these might include, e.g. investment obligations, levies, quotas and rights retention as well as whether these parts of the Directive should be extended to VSPs).

There are some research reports providing either an overarching view of policy options and drivers in this sphere (such as Film i Väst reports) or a limited release of early data (as in the case of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l'image Animée (CNC)), but there is no comprehensive analysis of either the rationale for these measures or their initial impacts on the health of the wider screen ecosystem in the respective territories.

The principal focus of this research is the impact of regulation of online services, including VOD (both Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) and Ad-supported Video on Demand (AVOD) platforms), and video sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok where relevant.

For each country studied, we want to understand the impacts on the audiovisual ecosystem as a whole, and local independent film and TV production in particular (as strengthening the latter is often the objective of such interventions), audiences and cultural diversity. The study should also include a counterfactual which considers these impacts in a territory (outside the UK) in which such measures have not been introduced.