Ms Teresa Kenny:

I will start with the creative commons point and the media fund. At present, we have a broadcasting fund which production companies can avail of. That is valuable to the broadcasters because although the broadcasters cannot access that fund directly, productions that broadcasters are funding can be cofunded by the Sound and Vision fund. It is now proposed to change that Sound and Vision fund to a platform-neutral fund, which will be called a media fund. There is some language in the Bill which suggested that Coimisiún an Meán might set down some restrictions on the use of the content and require that content be creative commons content, which means it will be in the public domain. If that were to happen, there would be no incentive for any broadcasters to seek to fund content that is going to be in the public domain. If something is in the public domain, it means the broadcaster who is funding that content does not get exclusive rights to it. For example, if in the morning a production company came to TG4 and said it would like to submit an application to this new media fund for a particular project it has in mind and would like TG4 funding and funding from the new media fund, if that content was going to be public-domain content, it would not be viable for TG4 to fund it. It would be easier for TG4 to sit back and wait for someone else to fund it and then just access the content in the public domain. The broadcaster would not be able to get any exclusive rights in that type of content because everyone could access it. That was the concern around that particular aspect of the language in the Act.

With regard to the Senator’s question about the European Media Freedom Act, EMFA, we hugely welcome the multi-annual funding proposal. We question whether some of the language is consistent with Article 5.1 and Article 5.3 of the EMFA, however. Article 5.1 of the EMFA states that a member state shall ensure public service media providers are editorially and functionally independent and provide in an impartial manner a plurality of information and opinions to their audiences. There is a requirement under Article 5.1 that public service medias will be editorially and functionally independent. Second, under Article 5.3, there is a requirement for sustainable, adequate and predictable funding.

In the context of Article 5.1 around editorial and functional independence, we are a bit concerned that the proposed manner in which the multi-annual funding is structured might inadvertently have the impact that the public service media loses that editorial and functional independence. It is the role of the public service media, and the role of the board of the public service media in particular, to set the strategy for the organisation. With the new proposed multi-annual funding, the regulator - that is, a third party - will, according to the language used in the Bill, "indicate" the performance commitments of the public service media. We are concerned that might inadvertently undermine the role of the board in setting the strategy of the organisation. It might not be consistent with Article 5.1 of the EMFA which requires functional and editorial independence.