Videoage International December 2019

4 World December 2019 V I D E O A G E (Continued on Page 6) services. In terms of a qualified workforce employed in the au- diovisual sector, it has around 206,000 people (as of 2017). Inaddition,theU.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 ques- tions related to access to the E.U. market, and to E.U. funding streams and co-production incen- tives, 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 sec- tors should continue to apply in the U.K. The most worrisome and un- resolved issue, however, is the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union as an inter- preter of E.U. rules without its direct jurisdiction in the U.K. in this context. Despite several documents offering some insights into fu- ture relations between the U.K. and the E.U., there isn’t a final agreement yet. NAB Brings It Home T he Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the lobbying organization for U.S. radio and TV stations, recently relaunched its “We Are Broad- casters” campaign by providing free TV and radio commercials to all local U.S. TV and radio broadcast stations. The campaign was originally launched in 2013 to educate U.S. legislators about the many ways their constituents rely on local broadcasters. To date, stations have aired more than 4.5 million spots. “Americans,” stated NAB, “turn to their local TV and radio stations to provide themwith the critical news, emergency up-da- tes, weather reports, sports, and entertainment they value. Yet, policymakers who have the abili- ty to shape broadcasting’s future R ecently, 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 filmexports 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 Brexit’s Impact on the U.K. Audiovisual Industry Is Analyzed By The Council of Europe