It is the end of a long journey.
One year after the adoption of the law obliging international video platforms to contribute to the financing of French creation, the Superior Audiovisual Council announces that this Thursday it has signed three-year agreements with Netflix, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
These documents specify the amount that each of these players will have to pay each year to meet their new obligations.
The sum corresponds to 20% of the turnover achieved by these video streaming services on French territory.
This will represent a windfall of 250 to 300 million euros per year for French production.
By way of comparison, the Canal group will pay 190 million euros per year to the cinema alone.
Read alsoStreaming: the platforms will pay 20 to 25% of their income in France to cinema and audiovisual
As specified in the implementing decree of the law, published in June, 20% of the contribution of platforms is devoted to cinema.
The remaining 80% are dedicated to the financing of series, documentaries or cartoons.
American platforms wanted to be able to buy more stream programs (shows, games, reality TV ...), which was refused by the CSA.
40 million euros per year for Amazon
To reach these agreements, the video services had to share their French turnover with the CSA.
Unsurprisingly, Netflix will pay out the most money.
Amazon ranks second, but the calculation of its obligation has been the subject of tough negotiations.
Its Prime Video service is indeed encompassed within the Amazon Prime subscription, which includes free priority delivery, access to Amazon Music, Prime Video, as well as a collection of digital books and video games.
So how do you determine what percentage of Amazon Prime revenue to allocate to video consumption?
Amazon proposed a calculation method that resulted in a contribution of 10 million euros per year.
Much too low in the eyes of the CSA, which threatened to calculate the contribution of the American from the total turnover of Amazon Prime in France, which would be according to our calculations of 300 million euros.
In the end, the two parties agreed on a guaranteed minimum of 40 million euros per year.
This amount may be revised upwards.
The CSA will sign new agreements next week with Google, OCS, Canal + Séries, and the VOD services of Canal + and Amazon Prime Video.
This should bring in a few tens of millions of euros more for French creation.
The chronology of the media in question
The integration of video streaming platforms into the financing of cultural exception, sealed by the signing of agreements with the CSA, marks an important step for French creation. Until now, only TV channels like TF1, M6 or Canal + were subject to financing obligations. "
It is the culmination of a long-term process, which has mobilized the entire creative chain, from authors to producers, public authorities at the highest level and the CSA
", indicates its president, Roch-Olivier Maistre. A process that was anything but a long quiet river.
In November 2018, Brussels adopted the AVMS directive. This text would allow each Member State to set new rules of the game in order to adapt the method of financing audiovisual production to the reality of the uses created by the streaming giants. The so-called SMAD (on-demand audiovisual media services) decree, which results from it, has been delayed several times. It was to be signed before the end of 2020 to enter into force last January. It will finally be published in the Official Journal at the beginning of the summer. In the meantime, Brussels has been critical of the text and the streaming giants have used all of their weight to ease their obligations. End of August,Netflix lodged an appeal against the decree on the grounds that the establishment of counterparties to its financing obligations was slow in coming. Then Disney, in turn, unofficially threatened not to release its films in French theaters, in order to put pressure in negotiations on the media chronology, this rule that governs the life of a film after its theatrical release.
Everything is not yet fully settled, by the way. Rather than signing a convention, the CSA has chosen the route of notification with regard to investment obligations in cinema. This choice, says the regulator, should allow streaming platforms and French cinema to conclude interprofessional agreements around the famous media chronology. Now that they are funding French films, streaming services want to be able to broadcast them after one year and not three.
However, the bilateral agreement, signed between Canal + and the cinema last week makes them cough a lot. The crypto channel agreed to put more money back into the pot. But in return, she got to be able to broadcast her films six months after the cinema and to be able to use them for 9 months. Clearly, it has managed to keep the streaming giants at bay. “
It looks like a crowding out of the market,
” one of them squeaks. The platforms could consider that the agreement between Canal + and the cinema is anti-competitive. "
All options are on the table
», Continues one of them.
Now that the CSA has notified streaming players of their obligations in film production, French cinema still has to agree on the chronology of the media.
he has until the beginning of March.
