Television

The core argument of “it’ll reduce the quality of films” seems to be nonsense. Unless I’m missing a crucial piece of context here. Filmmakers are already heavily incentivized to target the lowest common denominator. Today their film can be licensed to multiple distributors, one or more in each country. So, if they wanted to make as much return as possible, they’re going to target as wide as audience as possible.

What this would do is hurt the local distributors in those countries. Films would be licensed to companies who have a strong presence in all of the affected countries, instead of many distributors that are only prevalent in one. I assume this would lead to Netflix and Amazon getting the largest share.

I’d be interested if people in Europe find the current system to be a significant hassle or not.

What a shitty excuse lol

Duller & less imaginative than they are currently? I fucking doubt that.

For anyone that hasn’t read, or doesn’t understand the article, the geo block ban the EU is proposing is aimed at broadcasters who are the primary buyers of content. Geo-blocking means that France Télévisions only serves a French audience, while ZDF serves German… BBC would be a more obvious example for English speaks, but, Brexit.

This ban would consolidate Europe into a single media market and would likely result in Germany and France controlling the a large portion of the content the rest of Europe views.

Additionally, a filmmaker can sell rights to something multiple times if there is interest in each market. This allows for larger budgets than you could afford if only sold once.

The European market is a bit archaic, and the filmmakers concerns are self serving, but consolidation around a few central players doesn’t seem likely to improve quality.

I’ve heard enough Canadians talk about their “second amendment right” to handguns to know there are deeper societal issues that are at risk as well.