BECTU response to European Commission Proposals on Media Plus

23 February 2000

We are pleased with the opportunity to comment on the proposals. Since, in the time available, it has not been possible to undertake an intensive consultation with members potentially affected, our comments at this stage are brief and general rather than detailed and specific.

2. We note with approval the continued emphasis, as in Media II, on training. As DCMS is well aware, there have been intensive domestic debates on training provision and related funding mechanisms. Considerable progress has been made to recent years under the auspices of Skillset, the National Training Organisation. Our concern in this area, therefore, is that Media Plus-Training may be insufficiently co-ordinated with the strategic role on training being developed by Skillset within our domestic industry. We believe Media Plus will be more effective if such co-ordination is built in at an early stage. A more focussed and co-ordinated approach will, in our view, have more impact that a completely separate and disparate mechanism for training provision.

3. On development, we note the proposed emphasis on single project and state funding at the expense of company development and business plan support, which is due to disappear. We question this approach. The intense recent debate on film policy in the UK has emphasised structural weaknesses rather than lack of project funding as a principle barrier to the industry's development. We believe a similar analysis can be applied at a pan-European level. We would argue, therefore, that company development should continue to be incorporated in the programme - as it has been under Media II. The building of a long-term base for the industry is as important, if not more important than the need for short-term project funding.

4. We again support the continued emphasis on distribution in Media Plus. It will, in our view, be particularly desirable to provide support for projects with real commercial potential. In the long term, the viability of the European industry and its ability to compete in the world market will rest on our ability to produce and distribute works with commercial appeal. We believe that this should be a key criterion in the distribution component and that careful consideration should be given as to whether the proposed selective support scheme assists this aim.

5. We support the promotion component of Media Plus. Recent domestic debate has emphasised our weakness in the area of promotion and marketing, especially compared to the American majors. A combined pan-European focus on this aspect is therefore essential.

6. We look forward, under Media Plus, to the restoration of a fully functioning UK Media Desk based in London together with the national/regional antennae. We seek confirmation that this will happen, as well as specific details on the timescale.

7. As a general comment, and one which has already been made by a number of other organisations, we have serious doubts whether the amount of funding allocated is sufficient to achieve the Commission's stated aims. We accept that, as ever, there are clear financial constraints but we believe that, without a more fully funded programme (and consideration of additional funding mechanisms),the Media Programme will continue to be marginal rather than central to the development of the European audiovisual industry.

8. More fundamentally, we do not believe the Media Programme can, in its present form, provide a European audiovisual strategy which can overcome or at least seek to remedy the structural weakness of the European industry and develop a more effective intervention in the world market. Stronger additional measures would also be necessary, as well as increased funding. A number of such proposals have been discussed at previous European Audiovisual Conferences - including soft-loan finance for European distribution consortia; a parafiscal levy translating into production credits for reinvestment in the European industry (rather than, for example, repatriation of revenue from the European market by US majors); a European Guarantee Fund (or similar proposal); the maintenance, if not the tightening, of the 'majority of European works' requirement under the Television Without Frontiers Directive. Some of these proposals would need further debate and amendment in the current context. The point is, however, that there is potentially much more to a European audiovisual strategy than the Media Programme can at present provide.

We look forward to news of further progress in developing the UK response on Media Plus.