Recently, the Strasbourg, France-based European Audiovisual Observatory of the Council of Europe published an 80-page report detailing Brexit’s impact on the audiovisual sector, which is summarized below.

With Brexit, all E.U. primary and secondary laws will cease to apply in the U.K. This will have a considerable impact on the regulatory framework applicable to the U.K. audiovisual sector as most of its aspects are currently governed by E.U. law.

The first major consequence would be the loss of access to the E.U. market and the freedoms of movement guaranteed therein.

The U.K. is the second-largest E.U. country, after France, in terms of content production and film exports in cinemas and television. In terms of TV channels and on-demand services, the U.K. represents 29 percent of E.U. television channels and 27 percent of E.U. on-demand services. In terms of a qualified workforce employed in the audiovisual sector, it has around 206,000 people (as of 2017).

In addition, the U.K. audiovisual market has had access to a range of E.U. funding streams, which represented a total value of £298.4 million (U.S.$384.3 million) for 1,766 projects during the 2007-2017 period. These E.U. funding streams can be used in combination with funding from U.K. public funds and tax incentives.

General concerns are mainly related to the mobility of skilled workers, to the different questions related to access to the E.U. market, and to E.U. funding streams and co-production incentives, as well as to the question of how to guarantee and enforce copyright protection.

Among the proposed mea-sures is the triple test advanced by the U.K. regulator Ofcom, which should decide which E.U. legislation in the regulated sectors should continue to apply in the U.K.

The most worrisome and unresolved issue, however, is the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union as an interpreter of E.U. rules without its direct jurisdiction in the U.K. in this context.

Despite several documents offering some insights into future relations between the U.K. and the E.U., there isn’t a final agreement yet.

Audio Version (a DV Works service)

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