Streaming Quotas for Local Content
The discussion
Zanele: I support the proposal requiring streaming services to make at least a fifth of their catalogue locally produced. Without it, young viewers here grow up seeing their own country only in the news, never in drama.
Oliver: Quotas produce quantity, not quality. Broadcasters under the old television rules filled their slots with cheap panel shows, and I'd expect streamers to do the same just to tick a box.
Minh: I'm partly with Oliver on the risk, but the alternative is doing nothing. Perhaps the rule should be about spending, say a percentage of local revenue invested in local production, rather than counting titles.
Zanele: A spending rule would be fine with me, because the point is that money earned here funds stories from here. Catalogue share was just one way to measure it.
Oliver: Spending is better than counting, I admit. But I'd still want the money going to independent producers rather than the platforms' own studios, otherwise it becomes an accounting exercise.
Minh: That's a reasonable safeguard. Add a requirement that a share goes to independents, and I think all three of us could sign off on it.
Oliver: If it's framed as investment with an independent-producer condition, then yes, I'll support it, though I still think the twenty-percent catalogue version was a mistake.