The move, unveiled Tuesday by Canadian officials, would also order streaming services such as Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video, Walt Disney Co. ’s Disney+, and Spotify Technology SA to meet certain Canadian-content requirements, such as more programming to serve the country’s francophone and indigenous populations.
Officials said the changes are meant to address a regulatory imbalance, as streaming services from abroad are making inroads in the Canadian economy at the expense of the domestic cultural industry. Under the proposed revamp, online-streaming services would be defined as broadcasters under Canadian law, and thereby subject to the same rules as legacy domestic broadcasters.
Under Canada’s regulatory framework, the broadcasting industry must contribute a chunk of its revenue to fund the Canadian production of TV shows, movies and music. In 2018, or the most recent annual figures available, Canada’s broadcasters contributed roughly 20% of revenue to finance Canadian programming. Based on their projections of revenue from streaming services, officials expect Netflix and the others to contribute at least C$1 billion toward financing Canadian programming, starting in 2023.
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