Egmont: New Media Agreement Good for Danish Film, but Maintains Uneven Media Conditions

Nordisk Film is satisfied that the new media agreement increases the funding for Danish films and series with an equal split of 50/50 percent for each. 

"The government and supporting parties have listened to the fact that Danish film is currently under great pressure partly due to a large production push from streaming companies, costlier labor, and reduced payment from TV broadcasters. The cultural contribution can help to ensure that, as a society, we prioritize the special Danish stories that reflect and touch us as humans and which are not produced with international algorithms in mind. At the same time, it is intended that proper terms will be negotiated in the so-called film obligation with DR and TV 2, who in recent years have significantly reduced their support for Danish films. This will be crucial in the upcoming negotiations for a film agreement," says CEO of Nordisk Film, Allan Mathson Hansen. 

He is also pleased that DR's external spending is to be accounted for more accurately and that the agreement focuses on children and youth, including support for the Manuscript School for Child Fiction, which the Nordisk Film Foundation helped to start. 

However, Nordisk Film had hoped for a broad majority behind the agreement. 

"We know that the right-wing parties have fought to maintain the Danish model without involving it in a media agreement. We already have a well-functioning market regulated by collective agreements with fair terms. It is also regrettable that as private producers we are not allowed to produce more drama for DR, as is the case in Norway and Sweden, where public-service stations outsource their productions. I would have liked to see a broad, long-term agreement," says Allan Mathson Hansen. 

Story House Egmont is sorry that the media agreement does not include equality for digital media within a broad agreement – something that the Conservative, Liberal, and Danish People's parties had called for. Today, digital media originating from newspaper houses are exempt from VAT, while other journalistic media are subject to the full VAT rate, leading to competitive distortion and hindering the development of new digital services. 

"Our digital media outlet Euroman.dk publishes daily with up to 180 articles a month created by an independent editorial team. It is currently subject to VAT, while most other digital media are VAT-exempt. It goes without saying that we cannot create good digital journalistic media if we are subject to such distorting competition. We had hoped politicians would commit to finding a long-term solution to equalize digital, journalistic media and are both surprised and disappointed that this was not included – despite Danish Media, the Confederation of Danish Industry, the Danish Chamber of Commerce, and Grakom pointing out that the Danish special VAT arrangement is problematic," says Frank Vilstrup, Director of Consumer Magazines at Story House Egmont. 

He urges the committee that will look at the future structuring of media support to also consider the Danish VAT special arrangement. 

However, Frank Vilstrup is pleased that DR is mandated to outsource some of their children's content in audio. 

"We are specialists in producing quality content for children in books, magazines, and audio. But it is extremely difficult to produce, for example, podcasts for children on commercially sustainable terms. We would very much like to produce for DR and look forward to a dialogue about it," says Frank Vilstrup.