Irene Gardiner: SPADA President on the new proposal regarding changes to the TV and Screen Production industry

The Screen Producers guild —SPADA— says overall, it's pleased with proposed changes for media. 

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has released a discussion document with five proposals. 

They include the possibility of requiring platforms to invest more in local content and a suggestion New Zealand on Air and the Film Commission could be merged. 

SPADA President Irene Gardiner told Francesca Rudkin the document's considered and detailed. 

She says it shows the Ministry's listened to what they're saying and has taken it on board. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, local media may soon be on a more level
playing field. Global streamers like Netflix, Apple and Disney could
be required to invest in local key we content underproposed
changes to the media sector. The Screen Producers Guild has
been lobbying for regulation of international streamers for quite some time.
In Sparta, President Irene Gardner is with me this morning,
as always, appreciate your time, Irene.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Lovely to be here, Willie it is.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
What are your thoughts on this? Will this be enough?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, it's a really good start the discussion. That's a
lot of the discussion document is actually very very good.
It's it's quite detailed, quite considered, and it shows a
really good understanding of the local production sector and the
challenges that we're currently stacing. So that's great. We feel
kind of you know, listened to, which is always a

(00:53):
nice thing. And as you mentioned in your intro, we're
particularly pleased to see regulating the international stream in companies
is one of the proposals because we've been lobbying for
that for for such a long time. There's still a
lot of work to be done, you know, there's different options,
and that's the whole point of a discussion document, is
that people will now submit and we would look out

(01:14):
the best way forward, but at least it's there. The
way they're talking about it is perhaps an investment on
a percentage of revenue that the streamers are making, and
that the same sort of local quota amount would be
put on our local broadcasters if there's slight danger there.

(01:36):
We don't want to hurt the local bod casters who
are operating in the same amount of money. You know,
that's part of our problems that we don't have the
revenue so much anymore because of the impact of the streamers.
So we'd have to make sure that the local part
of it was manageable and it wasn't hurting anybody, so
wasn't unintended consequences. But you know, that's the sort of

(01:57):
stuff that can all be worked through. We've actually proposed
for a levee system where they just paid a percentage
of their New Zealand revenue and that was invested back
into local production, which may maybe a better system might
be fairer, harder to work around a.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Little bit and simpler maybe to I ring.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, but you know, we're open to anything that helps
the level of playing field, because you know, it really
has been incredibly tough as the streamers have kind of
got a strangle hold over audiences and therefore, you know,
affected the ad revenue that local fuctions are wels relied on.
So it's it's a bred start. Well that's the little
way to go.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, I mean, that's the question. Isn't it as New
Zealand showing up too late on this?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, ideally it should have happened years ago, and you know,
we wouldn't have gotten to the problem we're in now.
We're advertising revenue is completely fell off a cliff this
past year and everything is really tough. But it's never
too late. So yeah, let's just really push and hope
that it happened because they you know, I mean, we

(03:03):
love the streamers. They've been wonderful content here sometimes they
shoot shows here, but you know, they haven't invested in
local at all and they've taken our eyeballs and our
ad rev and so they kind of should be part
of the solution because it's them that's the great things,
and anything any regulation in this area that helps them
all the plainfield will be very very welcome.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Irene. Have the streamers have faced regulation in other countries similar.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
To the starting too, starting to yes, there's quite a
few countries that are much further out of the block
than US. A lot, particularly European Scandinavian territories. They seem
to have all been very good at getting things happening.
Australia has been pushing and pushing and pushing, but still
haven't quite got there. And you know, what there are
is quite similar to what's been proposed in the document,

(03:55):
which is a percentage of their Australian revenue you know,
invested into local content. So you know, maybe we'll do
something that's quite similar. And you know, being too, territories
quite connected. But internationally there's levees us yearly round about
sort of five six percent on their local revenue, and

(04:20):
there's also sort of hybrids. You know, you pay the levy,
but you know you can also make local content instead
and get your levee amount reduced. So there's different ways
of looking at it, and you know, to be fair,
this is a discussion document and it's just put it out,
but it's put streamers regulating in there, put you know,

(04:41):
a proposed perhaps preferred way of doing it. But it's
also said that they're open to looking at different ways
so you know, SPARTA and others can come back on
that and say, well, hey, you know this might work better.
It might be that what the reporters down has gone
for what is most palatable, you know what, because obviously
there's big companies and they do push back when regulation

(05:02):
has tried. They might be thinking that this is more
palatable than a straight levy. I think the tricky thing
was something like this is you can maybe sort of
sneak around it in ways like you can just buy
a whole lot of local content instead of investing in
making some, or you can make one incredibly expensive local

(05:23):
production and that kind of only helps one area. But
you know, all of this splu worked out.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
As you say, a discussion document. Lots to talk about
oroon Garden Always appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
to News Talks.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
It'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.