The EU is preparing to take action against the “disproportionate” volume of British TV shows/films being shown in Europeafter Brexit, a move that is expected to significantly hurt the UK’s entertainment industry as well as the country’s power abroad.
The United Kingdom is Europe's largest producer of films and television programs, but its dominance has been described as a threat to the continent's "cultural diversity"in an internal EU document.
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This move will further strain EU-UK relations, given that the latter left the single market and customs union – including disputes over the sale of British sausages in Northern Ireland and the issuance of fishing licenses, with British Royal Navy vessels patrolling the island of Jersey earlier this year.
Despite Brexit, UK programmes and films are still labelled as “European works”. However, a leaked EU document states: “The high availability of UK content on video on demand services, as well as the benefits granted by the labelling as “European works”, may lead to a disproportionate presence of UK content within the European on-demand quota and hinder a greater variety of European works.”
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This issue arises partly because of the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), which requires that the majority of airtime on terrestrial TV must be European content and that it must account for almost 1/3 of the content on video on demand (VOD) services such as Amazon and Netflix.
The document also warns that the large proportion of UK films and television programmes “may affect” the objectives of the directive.
In addition, the European Commission was asked to conduct an investigation into the risks posed by British programs to the "cultural diversity ," according to the document.
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Adam Minns, chief executive of the Association of Commercial Broadcasters, warned that any change could be a serious blow to the UK industry, adding that selling international copyrights to British programmes has become a crucial part of funding production in some genres, such as drama.
A UK government spokesman said: “The European works regime continues to apply to audiovisual works produced by the UK, as it is a party to the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Transfrontier Television.”
