The new Audiovisual law that will be voted on this afternoon in Congress is now under threat of falling on deaf ears. The reason, a retouch in the text that the PSOE introduced and that could have the support of the PP and Ciudadanos. This modification makes the independent producers consider that it could end up with them and mean "their death sentence". Instead, it would benefit the big producers, such as Mediaset or Atremedia. As La Vanguardia has learned, Esquerra has changed his mind about a rule that cost him a lot of wear and tear from other pro-independence sectors, which had worked with the socialists and which he even set as a condition to give free rein to the 2022 state budget in December from last year.
The Republicans are, in principle, necessary to approve the Audiovisual Law, especially if one takes into account that Bildu could also be considering rejecting the norm.
“An independent producer is considered to be a natural or legal person who is not linked in a stable way to a common business strategy with one or several service providers (...) and in exchange for a consideration makes them available to a (now ”said “) Provider of the audiovisual communication service”, says article 110 of the text to which the Republicans claim to return, which would prevent Atresmedia or Mediaset producers from passing as independents. With the modification of the PSOE, however, these could produce content taking advantage of the mandatory quota previously destined and reserved exclusively for independent production.
Thus, the law obliges private operators to dedicate 5% of their income to financing European audiovisual works, and that at least 70% of this amount goes to independent works in any of the official languages in Spain.
Esquerra sources assure that the Socialists' amendment "again favors the usual duopoly to the detriment of authentic independent production companies." And they affirm that the PSOE is even willing to reject a transactional amendment by United We Can, ERC and Bildu that claims to return the law to the previous wording. The Government, which is the one who really negotiated with Moncloa, especially with regard to the Catalan quota both on on-demand platforms and on online television, has also addressed the Secretary of State to inform it of its discomfort and to warn of the possible change of direction of the vote.
If the vote against or the abstention of the Republicans materializes, the Audiovisual law could fall in the last breath. It would be a blow to Moncloa, since its implementation is essential to comply with the European directive, which has already sanctioned Spain on occasion for not renewing the rule within the stipulated period.
The co-official language quotas, thus, could also be left in the lurch.
