MultiChoice owner Canal+ Africa plans to export local content globally, a move that will expose the work of South African artists internationally, but royalty fees remain a contentious issue.
The French entertainment giant owns Studio Canal, which finances, produces and distributes content. It boasts one of the largest libraries of European and American content, including up to 9,000 movies and 9,400 other titles from 60 countries.
Detailing some of the plans for the MultiChoice group, CEO of Canal+ Africa David Mignot, said in a recent interview that through Studio Canal, the aim is to export local content.
“Studio Canal is everywhere … they are the biggest seller of European content worldwide. So they are very open and already organised to sell,” he said.
He singled out local productions such as Shaka Ilembe — a biopic on the founder of the Zulu Kingdom — and Spinners, a crime drama series focused on the extreme sport of motor spinning, as ripe for syndication to a global audience.
“We have seen it in music and fashion. We begin to see it in audiovisual, but we need to be at the proper level of quality of production. And when you are at the quality of Shaka Ilembe or Spinners and so on, you are at a level of quality big enough to be able to sell the content on a worldwide basis.”
Spinners was co-produced by Showmax and Canal+ and has been taken to 20 countries, including Australia and France, said Mignot.
It was very appealing to the French audience as well. I am sure Shaka Ilembe will be a hit to that extent. It’s already two seasons. There will be a third one, which is under production as we speak, and I’m sure this one is going to be a hit.
“It was very appealing to the French audience as well. I am sure Shaka Ilembe will be a hit to that extent. It’s already two seasons. There will be a third one, which is under production as we speak, and I’m sure this one is going to be a hit.”
Mignot said it is a “golden age for producers. There’s never been that amount of production in the world as we speak, which is fantastic for the creativity and for the talent and artist and production ecosystem.”
Though he did not directly address the issue of royalty fees for artists, Mignot said Canal+ believed in a lot more creative freedom when it came to production agreements and commissioning content.
“You know, we are operating in many countries. There are different deals between producers and broadcasters. You can have a co-production agreement, distribution rights… We are very, very agnostic and very used to any model. Sometimes a producer is coming to you, and what they want is a pure commissioning model. Sometimes they are keen to invest partly … like shareholding. So I believe in freedom in that matter.”
The acting industry has for years called on the government to protect artists through changes in law. Currently, artists do not earn any royalty fees or residuals for their work. The content rights are owned by broadcasters. The SA Guild of Actors (Saga) has been calling on the government to sign the Copyright Amendment Bill (CAB) and the Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill (PPAB) to help the creative industry secure rights to the content and also for fair pay.
Saga chair Jack Devnarain said the South African production industry has opposed any moves towards actor royalties. Broadcasters and producers have consistently voiced their opposition to the statutory royalty rights for actors contained in the linked PPAB and CAB.
“If broadcasters and producers had any intention to introduce actor royalty rights, there would never have been a need to introduce these provisions in a statutory amendment,” he said.
“SAGA is under no illusions that the Canal+ acquisition of Multichoice would result in royalty rights for actors. If there was any such intention, we would have expected, in our democratic dispensation, that Canal+ would have engaged with industry bodies to discuss how royalty provisions would be introduced through actor contracts. There has been no such engagement, and we are not swayed by Mr Mignot’s media comments.”
He said Saga remains committed to its drive to introduce industry regulation through unionisation. “Actors, background actors and technical crew can no longer subsidise production budgets that drive earning rates lower year on year. It is essential that we develop a regulatory system that introduces standardised earning rates and contract terms to protect vulnerable workers in the production industry. Until Saga is made privy to an actual plan for how the broadcaster intends to introduce royalty-earning rights in contracts, we regard this as so much hype.”
The combined businesses of Canal+ and Multichoice will serve more than 40-million subscribers across close to 70 countries in Africa, Europe and Asia, with a workforce of about 17,000 employees.
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