Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Irene Gardiner: SPADA President on the new proposal regarding changes to the TV and Screen Production industry

Transcript

Irene Gardiner: SPADA President on the new proposal regarding changes to the TV and Screen Production industry · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now, local media may soon be on a more level
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: playing field. Global streamers like Netflix, Apple and Disney could
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: be required to invest in local key we content underproposed
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: changes to the media sector. The Screen Producers Guild has
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: been lobbying for regulation of international streamers for quite some time.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: In Sparta, President Irene Gardner is with me this morning,
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  Speaker 1: as always, appreciate your time, Irene.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Lovely to be here, Willie it is.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this? Will this be enough?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a really good start the discussion. That's a
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: lot of the discussion document is actually very very good.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: It's it's quite detailed, quite considered, and it shows a
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  Speaker 2: really good understanding of the local production sector and the
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  Speaker 2: challenges that we're currently stacing. So that's great. We feel
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: kind of you know, listened to, which is always a
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: nice thing. And as you mentioned in your intro, we're
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: particularly pleased to see regulating the international stream in companies
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  Speaker 2: is one of the proposals because we've been lobbying for
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: that for for such a long time. There's still a
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  Speaker 2: lot of work to be done, you know, there's different options,
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  Speaker 2: and that's the whole point of a discussion document, is
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  Speaker 2: that people will now submit and we would look out
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  Speaker 2: the best way forward, but at least it's there. The
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  Speaker 2: way they're talking about it is perhaps an investment on
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  Speaker 2: a percentage of revenue that the streamers are making, and
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  Speaker 2: that the same sort of local quota amount would be
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  Speaker 2: put on our local broadcasters if there's slight danger there.
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  Speaker 2: We don't want to hurt the local bod casters who
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  Speaker 2: are operating in the same amount of money. You know,
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  Speaker 2: that's part of our problems that we don't have the
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  Speaker 2: revenue so much anymore because of the impact of the streamers.
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  Speaker 2: So we'd have to make sure that the local part
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  Speaker 2: of it was manageable and it wasn't hurting anybody, so
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  Speaker 2: wasn't unintended consequences. But you know, that's the sort of
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  Speaker 2: stuff that can all be worked through. We've actually proposed
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  Speaker 2: for a levee system where they just paid a percentage
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  Speaker 2: of their New Zealand revenue and that was invested back
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  Speaker 2: into local production, which may maybe a better system might
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  Speaker 2: be fairer, harder to work around a.
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  Speaker 1: Little bit and simpler maybe to I ring.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, we're open to anything that helps
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  Speaker 2: the level of playing field, because you know, it really
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  Speaker 2: has been incredibly tough as the streamers have kind of
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: got a strangle hold over audiences and therefore, you know,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: affected the ad revenue that local fuctions are wels relied on.
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  Speaker 2: So it's it's a bred start. Well that's the little
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  Speaker 2: way to go.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the question. Isn't it as New
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Zealand showing up too late on this?
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  Speaker 2: Well, ideally it should have happened years ago, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: we wouldn't have gotten to the problem we're in now.
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  Speaker 2: We're advertising revenue is completely fell off a cliff this
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  Speaker 2: past year and everything is really tough. But it's never
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: too late. So yeah, let's just really push and hope
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  Speaker 2: that it happened because they you know, I mean, we
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  Speaker 2: love the streamers. They've been wonderful content here sometimes they
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  Speaker 2: shoot shows here, but you know, they haven't invested in
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  Speaker 2: local at all and they've taken our eyeballs and our
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  Speaker 2: ad rev and so they kind of should be part
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  Speaker 2: of the solution because it's them that's the great things,
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  Speaker 2: and anything any regulation in this area that helps them
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  Speaker 2: all the plainfield will be very very welcome.
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  Speaker 1: Irene. Have the streamers have faced regulation in other countries similar.
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  Speaker 2: To the starting too, starting to yes, there's quite a
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  Speaker 2: few countries that are much further out of the block
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  Speaker 2: than US. A lot, particularly European Scandinavian territories. They seem
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  Speaker 2: to have all been very good at getting things happening.
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  Speaker 2: Australia has been pushing and pushing and pushing, but still
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  Speaker 2: haven't quite got there. And you know, what there are
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  Speaker 2: is quite similar to what's been proposed in the document,
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  Speaker 2: which is a percentage of their Australian revenue you know,
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  Speaker 2: invested into local content. So you know, maybe we'll do
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  Speaker 2: something that's quite similar. And you know, being too, territories
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  Speaker 2: quite connected. But internationally there's levees us yearly round about
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  Speaker 2: sort of five six percent on their local revenue, and
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  Speaker 2: there's also sort of hybrids. You know, you pay the levy,
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  Speaker 2: but you know you can also make local content instead
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  Speaker 2: and get your levee amount reduced. So there's different ways
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  Speaker 2: of looking at it, and you know, to be fair,
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  Speaker 2: this is a discussion document and it's just put it out,
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  Speaker 2: but it's put streamers regulating in there, put you know,
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  Speaker 2: a proposed perhaps preferred way of doing it. But it's
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  Speaker 2: also said that they're open to looking at different ways
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  Speaker 2: so you know, SPARTA and others can come back on
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  Speaker 2: that and say, well, hey, you know this might work better.
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  Speaker 2: It might be that what the reporters down has gone
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  Speaker 2: for what is most palatable, you know what, because obviously
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  Speaker 2: there's big companies and they do push back when regulation
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  Speaker 2: has tried. They might be thinking that this is more
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  Speaker 2: palatable than a straight levy. I think the tricky thing
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  Speaker 2: was something like this is you can maybe sort of
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  Speaker 2: sneak around it in ways like you can just buy
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  Speaker 2: a whole lot of local content instead of investing in
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  Speaker 2: making some, or you can make one incredibly expensive local
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  Speaker 2: production and that kind of only helps one area. But
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  Speaker 2: you know, all of this splu worked out.
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  Speaker 1: As you say, a discussion document. Lots to talk about
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  Speaker 1: oroon Garden Always appreciate your time.
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  Speaker 2: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 5:37
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• 5:38
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• 5:41
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