New Zealand Producers Seek Levy on International Streaming Platforms

variety.com:

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The New Zealand screen producers’ guild SPADA says that international streaming platforms should be regulated and made to pay a portion of their revenue to the local industry. “The streamers currently pay no tax in New Zealand, face no regulation, and use broadband infrastructure that was partially funded by our government.

As has happened globally, their negative impact on local broadcasting viewership and therefore advertising revenue in the [local] market has been huge, which has been very challenging for local production,” said SPADA president Irene Gardiner on Thursday.

She was speaking at the guild’s annual conference and at the launch of a ‘love local’ campaign. “We will be suggesting to our new government that a levy be put on the platforms’ New Zealand revenue, which could then be invested back into local production via the screen funding agencies NZ Film Commission, NZ On Air and Te Mangai Paho. “We appreciate these are big businesses, and they may want to push back, especially on a small territory like New Zealand, but it’s not in the streamers’ interest to devastate local production either here or globally.

They need content and you get that by having strong domestic screen industries. They are a part of the screen eco-system here and we would ask them to take that responsibility seriously and play fair,” Gardiner said.