Euro Commercial Broadcasters Stress Economic Contribution

BRUSSELS: On the eve of the EU’s Digital Assembly in Brussels, the Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) is reiterating its constituents’ contribution to overall economic growth and competitiveness in the region.

“We fully agree with the aim of the Digital Agenda to make ‘Every European Digital,’" said Philippe Delusinne, the president and CEO of ACT and the president and the CEO of RTL Belgium. "Commercial broadcasters are key players in this process and take financial risk to offer new and innovative services to viewers across Europe on whatever platform and when they want. Recent studies assessed European television as being a 91.7 billion euros sector and up to 50 percent of our revenues are reinvested in content."

ACT is also pointing to its rapid response to technological change, and is calling for an increased emphasis on copyright protection. Adam Crozier, ITV’s CEO, noted, “Our creative industries can be an engine for growth but we need to be able to compete in today’s global media environment. Investment in original content will remain essential—that is why we continue to invest over £700 million per year in first-run programming on ITV1 alone. It will also become increasingly important to exploit this content across a wide range of different platforms and devices. Any weakening of the copyright regime threatens to undermine our ability to reinvest profits in economic growth and job creation—and to support innovation and cultural diversity.”

According to ACT, losses from content piracy could reduce the EU’s GDP by 8 billion euros annually. "Piracy on the net, tolerated for many years as it was a fantastic driver of Internet subscriptions, is endangering the business model of the content industry worldwide," said Fedele Confalonieri, chairman of Mediaset. "This is not a mere transfer of resources from one sector to another: it is a major erosion of the net revenues destined to the financing of original productions. In 2010, Italian broadcasters contributed with 2.3 billion euros to the production of film, TV drama and in-house programming."