Conservation vs. change, protection vs. openness, and domestic focus vs. global reach: these juxtapositions prompted participants at this national roundtable to highlight that a cursory examination of the public debate over the prospects of the Italian audiovisual industry would seem to reflect – if not reduce it to – a simplistic dichotomy between old and new market players. However, on closer inspection, the issue immediately emerges as much more complex, raising questions regarding momentous transformations underway in contemporary society, in Western Europe and beyond, with a good many other dichotomies also calling for attention.
It was suggested that this sea change can be attributed primarily to the impact of the technological and digital revolution, which is having knock-on effects both on the business models of public and private operators in the sector, and more and more pervasively, on the very DNA of consumers of audiovisual content. In simpler terms, the general public and its consumption patterns – that is, demand – have changed. Hence, the vehicles through which content is offered are evolving or need to evolve, both in production and distribution terms. This is – it was felt – in addition to the more general change in the contribution made by audiovisual media in shaping national and European cultural identity.
For the complexity of this transformation to be unpacked, it needs to be considered in light of two basic yet decisive variables, namely: the temporal factor and the spatial factor. In terms of the former, the participants took it as read that any outlook for economic recovery in the sector, which in Italy generates a turnover of more than 9 billion euro, cannot fail to take into account the extraordinary acceleration in the pace of change. Innovation linked to the so-called “internet ecosystem“ is proceeding at an uncommon speed, requiring old and new players alike to diligently adapt to technological convergence, the proliferation of platforms, interactivity, the vertical disintegration of communications enterprises, market fragmentation, and “net neutrality”. Evolving at a similar pace and subject to even greater unknowns is the profile of users, who – especially in younger age brackets – are increasingly becoming key players in a sort of “media nomadism“ that has now rendered obsolete the audience segmentation tools used up until recently.
It was noted that this exacerbation of the time factor has seen legislators struggle to respond with coherent and timely solutions. This is the case at the national level, where for instance there was deemed to be an increasingly glaring divide between the hyper-regulation to which the major traditional broadcasters are subject, and the effectively “Wild West“ conditions from which multinational players – the providers of so-called “Over-The-Top” services – would seem to be benefiting. It was stressed, however, that similar considerations at the European level. Notwithstanding the statements of principle contained in the Lisbon Strategy, slowness in adapting to legislation enacted in recent years has been compounded by the difficulty of creating a single regulatory framework governing the audiovisual sector and digitization process in general. Complicating the situation even further have been developments in the very notion of related rights, ranging from copyright and privacy protection, to the most recently decreed “right to oblivion”.
Viewed from this supranational angle, the other variable – the “spatial” factor – clearly takes on manifest significance. Indeed, in the face of increasingly global competition, the European dimension serves as the minimum frame of reference. In this regard, it was suggested that one need only consider the implications for the audiovisual industry of negotiations on free-trade agreements between the EU and US, with their longstanding sticking point over the so-called “cultural exception“, as well as the emergence of new dynamic players, in China and in other important growth markets.
Taking these considerations into account, it was emphasized that far from being solely a regulatory issue, the future of the audiovisual industry is no longer confined to a matter of the prospects facing firms in the sector, but forms part of a broader scenario where economic competitiveness and cultural identity interplay, in the wake of the combined effect of the economic (and investment) crisis on one hand, and the digital revolution on the other. It was stressed that in order to remain players in this scenario, Italy and Europe – hopefully starting under Italy’s imminent six-month presidency of the EU – need to adopt a more strategic and (at long-last) systemic vision of the creation, production and distribution of high value-added content capable of “conquering the world”, just as they must make efforts to protect the industry from imbalances and asymmetries.