the audiovisual law is the one with the most interests at stake

One of the factors that most influences the perception that a law is important, if not very important, has to do with the number of meetings that deputies hold with the business or social agents affectedalways before they register the amendments and, in any case, before they go to vote. The audiovisual is one of those important laws.

A parliamentary source who asks not to be identified recognized at the end of last February that the future regulation was giving him many headaches, and not only him, but his entire team. Requests for an interview with a director of institutional relations of company ‘X’ or with the communication manager of company ‘Y’ began to accumulate on the agenda, and without including internal meetings to receive this or that instructions. It may not be the most mediatic norm of the legislature, although it has already had its share of glory (in the processing of current budgets), but it is almost certain that It will be one of the laws with the most pressure aroundbut the most.

The source of another group, also with the request that his name not be collected, highlights that the wording is so convoluted and extensive that he communicated to his management that he could not be enough on his own, so he asked for help. Advisors to the group in the European Parliament lent him a hand, and thus, he has been able to tame the text whose scope is equivalent to huge amounts of money.

We are talking about the audiovisual sector, which It covers platforms such as Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV or Prime Video (Amazon), or Filmin and Movistar TV if we look at the national scene. That includes the linear televisions grouped in groups such as Atresmedia or Mediaset; that concerns RTVE; what reaches to YouTube or other media where videos are hosted and shared; that concerns the sound sector, and here the podcast would enter; that puts an outline to the production of fiction in the country and that delimits the territory in which advertising must move, including those of spirits; which puts the accent on protection of users, especially the most vulnerableespecially the minors…

In short, so many interests intersect that when the law landed in Congress, in December 2021, the PSOE and United We can conspire to go calmly and numb the spiritsthen at a thousand revolutions.

After four months, the waiting time is over. On April 5, the Government sent a request to the Congress Bureau to address the processing of the future audiovisual law by the urgency procedure, which means the end of the extensions of the weekly deadlines for amendments that have been taking place since February 7. When the deputies that make up the Committee on Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation return from their vacations, it is more than likely that they will come across the start of the presentation process that will study possible changes in the norm. The groups will then record the amendments, which are expected to be numerous, numbering in the hundreds. Y to negotiate.

The audiovisual law acquired political fame at the time that ERC asked the PSOE that if he wanted their support for the 2021 budgets, had to put an end to one of the most controversial sections for nationalist and independentist formations. In Catalonia, where the audiovisual industry moves close to 4,000 million euros and employs more than 14,000 people, the production shield in Catalanand the subsequent shielding of supply and broadcast on platforms and linear television, have become identity priorities.

After a series of heated negotiations, to the point that one of its actors, the ERC spokesman, Gabriel Rufiánconsiders that it is his heaviest political digestion, the Government and the training of Pere Aragonés managed to encrypt the armor at 6% of the catalog. The pact did not last long because a few days later the Council of Ministers approved the bill and sent it to Congress, and when they read it in Esquerra they did not find 6% next to words like Netflix or HBO. They reopened the front and put the budgets at risk again, as they walked through the Senate with signs of returning to Congress after some changes that the Government did not want to see even in painting. Thanks to grants of 15 million, the accounts were saved.

Well, that law that seemed in November and December 2021 the cotton test of relations between Catalan socialists and republicans, which is one of the columns on which this legislature rests, although from tremor to tremor, is the one that is going to be processed in a few days after a period of silence, stuck in the drawer of the extensions of amendments.

The The Commission for Economic Affairs of the Congress is now immersed in the telecommunications law, about to be approved, which is expected to happen at the end of the month. The audiovisual will take the witness. some are coming hard weeks within this parliamentary body chaired by a PP deputy, by the way. His name is Celso Delgado. He is a veteran parliamentarian, which will help the paper and amendment docking work to move forward and be completed without fanfare.

The groups, the majority at least, have such amendments already written. They will register them as soon as the term opens. To write them, their economic spokespersons, and in some cases those of culture, have had previous meetings with representatives of the affected multinationals and companies. As parliamentary sources have highlighted, concern abounds. The most controversial points hover over linear television, financing and the broadcast of advertising on TVE, platforms, independent content producers and the advertising of certain types of beverages. When numerous interests from powerful and influential sectors come together, as is the case, the pressure increases exponentially. This is recognized by several consulted sources.

The audiovisual bill comes from European legislation, which has established a common regulation in a sector that is evolving at such a speed that certain national regulations, the Spanish among them, have become outdated. Ten years ago, for example, the so-called ‘youtubers’ didn’t even exist. If they existed, they inhabited limited worlds. Today they reach millionaire audiences and are entertained with succulent advertising contracts.

164 articles make up the project, plus 5 additional provisions, 7 transitional and 8 final. Hit all the sticks. It includes a chapter on the external control mechanisms to which the providers of public audiovisual communication services will have to comply, which is the responsibility of the legislative assemblies of the autonomous communities or other entities created “ex profeso”. This includes the obligation of an evaluation of new services by the provider itself.

The law also includes provisions on the financing of public audiovisual communication services, both at the state level and at the regional and municipal levels. RTVE’s plays a prominent role in this chapter. Another title is addressed to radio and sound services on request, which although not covered by European legislation, the Spanish will, which since 2010 included it in the standard. One more, the V, has to do with what is considered one of the main novelties of the law, the exchange of videos through platforms or social networks, whose regulation is launched.

The child protection is one of the pillars, as well as the prevention for the general public of content that incites hatred or violence or contains a provocation to commit a terrorism crime. The standard also enters the regulation of advertising in these services.

The shielding of the official languages of the State, which caused tensions between PSOE and ERC, fundamentally, is consecrated in the regulation, as well as that of own production. A compulsory financing quota for such productions will have to be set aside.

The aforementioned are the columns on which the audiovisual law is built. Its articles and provisions will be submitted for review in a few weeks. The queen stage of the legislature is coming, with the permission of the housing law.