UK members of Parliament call for 5 percent of revenue from streaming services to be put into a fund that will preserve British content. According to Deadline, if that happens, Netflix will offset the added cost by sending it downstream to the subscribers.
The UK seems to be emboldened by its recent mega hit, Adolescence, and may be using this as leverage as it has ordered a report to be produced one week after its debut, which saw it soar to the top of the charts. The report by the Culture, Media, and Sports committee calls for “5% of their UK subscriber revenue into a cultural fund to help finance drama with a specific interest to British audiences.” This report also comes, conveniently, right after President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on UK steel and other goods, to which the UK Business and Trade Secretary announced that UK business would shape its response.
Although Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky (Britz, No Child of Mine) initially suggested the levy back in January to combat the lack of funding for British scripted series and was inspired by similar efforts throughout Europe, Sir Chris Bryant struck it down before the CMS committee. British Film Institute chief executive Ben Roberts made it clear that “there’s absolutely no consensus that a levy would be the right approach right now.” The committee stated they would analyze the situation, and the work wouldn’t be done until the summer.
It seems they have sped things up in response to the Trump tariffs, now changing their minds on the levy and upping the ante by also claiming, per Deadline, that it should be enacted into legislation if the levies have not been implemented within a year.
The Deadline report continued on to quote a Netflix spokeswoman as saying, “Levies diminish competitiveness and penalize audiences who ultimately bear the increased costs.” Another stark opponent of the levies, the Association for Commercial Broadcast and On-Demand Services (COBA) Executive Director Adam Minns, is reported by BBC as saying, “Ironically, it could actually damage public service broadcaster dramas by reducing co-production budgets at streamers.” He claims that the true culprit of the lack of funding for homegrown scripts is the real terms decline in the TV license fee.
Deadline also reported that COBA highlights the unparalleled commitment that streamers have to the UK, which is “the envy of many countries.” They remarked that the levies would “risk damaging that.”
The UK may do well to continue leveraging its record viewership hit show Adolescence, which is partly produced by Brad Pitt’s (Fight Club, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) production company, Plan B, and reported by Deadline to be in talks for its second season.
