A revolution in the television broadcasting market:
the Ministry of Communications publishes to the public a draft bill for the regulation of broadcasting.
The Ministry of Communications publishes today (Tuesday) the draft bill on the principles of regulation of content provision to the public, for public comments, which is intended to amend the legislation in the field of broadcasting and update the regulation that applies to the players operating in the market.
The draft bill is the result of the recommendations of the Folkman Committee established by Communications Minister Yoaz Handel in September 2020 and of professional teamwork at the Communications Ministry.
Strengthening local creation
International content providers with revenues of 600-300 million shekels will be required to invest 4% of their revenues in top class local productions that will apply to all the significant players in the broadcasting market in Israel, including international ones, in relation to the scope of their activities.
An international content provider with revenues over NIS 600 million will be required to invest 6.5%.
Israeli content providers, such as Partner-TV and Cellcom-TV that broadcast over the Internet (OTT) will also be required to invest in high quality local content.
You will be obliged to invest in local content.
Cellcom, photo: Avishag Sher Yeshav
Competition in sports broadcasts
In order to ensure a high level of accessibility of sports content that is in significant demand among the public or of cultural or national importance, a list of major sports events will be determined that the content providers will be required to offer to their subscribers, without additional payment.
In order to preserve the competition between the content providers which is directly affected by their ability to offer sports content, it is proposed to oblige the holder of sports rights to offer the sports content to all content providers, at fair and non-discriminatory prices.
In addition, a sports content broadcasting rights holder who sells the content to the content providers will be obliged to offer them the broadcasting rights on any platform, including mobile devices.
The draft law also states that any content provider will be able to broadcast news if it meets minimum conditions, provided that the creation of the news is done by a corporation separate from the broadcasting body.
The Cable and Satellite Council and the second authority will be closed, and in their place will be established an authority whose role is to regulate the entire field of providing audio-visual content to the public.
In view of their public importance, the Israel Broadcasting Corporation and the Knesset channel will provide any Israeli content provider that wants their content free of charge, since it is content that the Israeli consumer has already paid for through the payment of taxes.
"Moving towards legislation".
Handel (archive), photo: Gideon Markovich
Minister of Communications, Yoaz Hendel: "We are advancing another step in the broadcasting market and adapting it to the current era.
After many committees discussed the issue and many reports remained for years in the "drawer", today we are moving towards legislation.
The reform proposes to reduce the regulatory intervention in the broadcasting bodies, and the existing authorities that regulate the broadcasting market will be closed and in their place a new unified body will be created, with defined and focused regulatory authority.
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