“The independent production sector has evolved towards a reduction of rights, benefits and unclear procedures by the CCMA to limits that make productions practically unviable unless it is to the detriment of quality and the sector.” It is the complaint of the Federation of Audiovisual Producers (Proa) expressed in a document on the grievances by the CCMA where it ensures that the sector is in “an unsustainable situation” and “that it has to be modified so as not to endanger endanger the industry, the quality of the content, the creation of prestigious references and creative and technological innovation.”
“This document is the result of the desperation of our partners to see how the corporation mistreats independent producers,” explains the president of Proa, Jordi B. Oliva. The document has been delivered to the CCMA, to the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, to political parties and to the Department of Communication Mitjans. In addition, a meeting with the president of the Government, Pere Aragonès, is pending. Oliva says he has received understanding for his claims and that everyone is waiting “for the corporation to analyze the complaints and answer them.”
Proa recalls that the Generalitat, through the Department of Culture, made a commitment to promote audiovisual production, tripling its budget in the last three years. At the same time, the new state General Law of Audiovisual Communication obliges operators to finance and program works in Catalan and other languages. Good prospects that contrast, according to Proa, with the conditions that the CCMA imposes on the Catalan audiovisual ecosystem, limiting the competitiveness and growth of production companies and perverting the respect and founding obligation of the CCMA to play a primary role in the promotion and development of the local industry.
The statement complains that the wording of the Regulatory Standard for the selection and contracting procedure of audiovisual content for the media of the CCMA, published in 2016, “is harmful to production companies, harming the development of the industry” and divides the problem in three axes.
In a block dedicated to 'procedures', Proa denounces that the principles of equality, transparency and competition are not applied, generating comparative grievances. He complains, among other things, that the CCMA does not make public the hiring of calls for the OTT, that it filters needs to specific production companies or orders production companies to present projects.
Oliva summarizes this grievance “in the lack of transparency when awarding programs and, above all, in equating contracts.” Proa is aware that “some production companies have a more beneficial type of hiring than others.” She demands “transparent and equal hiring for everyone, and if any production company is able to negotiate better, fantastic, but it should not be the other way around, individualized negotiations that weaken the hiring of the rest.”
“We are making a positive request for transparency because we want to work more and better and for that we must understand the selection criteria in addition to defending that hiring be made to production companies from Catalonia and not from outside,” continues the president of Proa, who assures that production companies are being hired “that in Catalonia only have an office with a telephone operator to have a Catalan NIF when all the production is being done in Madrid.”
A second axis is economic. It is not only about having a greater financial allocation for the contents, but above all, it is requested that “hirings be competitive because today they cannot be competitive.” Among other reasons, because the price per minute has not been updated in the last 10 years.
In this area, Oliva talks about the difficulties of producers in obtaining Industrial Benefit (BI), the profit margin they have left after hiring technical and human teams. Currently, “something as absurd is happening as if we make a series that works and they hire us for a second season, we cannot apply the BI in the same way as the first season, it has to be less. “They are punishing the success of our works.” An insult that is added to the fact that today's BI is lower than that set in 2008.
Oliva also denounces a different criterion when evaluating the creation of a format “that penalizes local creative talent.” If a Catalan production company presents a format of its own creation, “TV3 does not pay for the idea and development of the format, but if you go with a program in which you want to adapt a format that has to be purchased abroad, then it does pay.”
Rights are addressed in another axis. Merlí exemplifies what is happening in this area. When the series was sold to Netflix and a spin-off fiction was made to Movistar Plus, all the profits went to TV3 and none to the production company. “They don't pay for the original format and they also keep the entire exploitation,” continues Oliva, who points out that in Europe the independent producer usually has a stake in the intellectual property. Another grievance is that TV3 keeps the rights in perpetuity when in Europe it is limited to a maximum of seven years.
In this section, Oliva highlights, however, that now the most serious thing is that, with 3Cat's OTT, the CCMA "intends to keep the global rights in perpetuity, paying the same as when there was only the linear channel, which blocks the windows." of producers to sell their works outside of Catalonia.”
Oliva summarizes Proa's grievances in "the lack of transparency in hiring that allows dubious maneuvers and the punishment of local talent and success."
