The revised Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AVMSD) is the EU’s most recent attempt to strengthen the European audiovisual industry by regulating the collaboration between global streaming platforms and European independent producers as well as obliging these new entrants to allocate at least 30% of their catalogue to European content. The Directive’s Article 13 stipulates that the global streamers operating in Europe must contribute financially to the production of European works, including via direct investment in content. While this requirement is almost fulfilled in many European countries, the obligation to allocate a percentage of the amount invested to independent production remains a controversial issue.
This workshop will shed light on the policy responses implemented by different countries when transposing the AVMS Directive into national law, on one hand, and the coproduction strategies of production companies operating in multicultural contexts, on the other. Focusing on the integration of the streaming giants in three “small countries” – Denmark, Romania and the Czech Republic, Spain, France, and Italy?, the workshop will explicate how the disruptive force of these new entrants poses unprecedented policy and transcultural challenges which cannot be addressed within the current regulatory frameworks, nor in compliance with existing national policies and production cultures. Drawing on methodologies from Media Industry Studies and Cultural Policies Studies, the workshop will analyse these challenges and will address the notion of independence in the audio-visual industry, by examining the particular economic and cultural implications that arise in co-productions between streamers and local producers.