U.K. rejects streaming levy and IP rules, favoring international investment and a mixed production model to boost its film and TV industry growth.
The U.K. government has unequivocally rejected a range of parliamentary committee recommendations aimed at bolstering domestic film and high-end television production, most notably declining to impose a 5% levy on subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) platforms and resisting mandatory intellectual-property retention rules.
In its formal July 3 response, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy emphasized the importance of a “mixed production ecology” that balances international investment with homegrown content creation.
This approach, the government argues, has driven a record £5.6 billion production spend in 2024—a 31% increase over the previous year—of which £4.8 billion stemmed from inward investment and co-productions.
Central to the government’s position is the belief that SVoD services are engines of growth rather than revenue drains.
By funding large-scale projects such as Barbie, which purportedly injected £80 million into the U.K. economy, and Bridgerton, whose five-year run generated £275 million and supported some 5,000 local businesses, platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ are credited with creating jobs, nurturing talent pipelines, and offering producers attractive upfront fees.
Nandy’s response specifically lauded initiatives such as Amazon’s Prime Video Pathway and Disney’s funding for the National Film and Television School expansion as concrete examples of streaming-led investment in skills development.
While ardent supporters of public service broadcasters continue to cite their favorable terms of trade—allowing producers to retain secondary rights—the government warned that forcing producers into a narrow choice between PSBs and streamers could stifle creative and commercial flexibility.
Instead, it championed the notion that producers benefit most from striking deals across both spheres, leveraging PSB financing to maintain rights for additional revenue streams and utilizing SVoD’s deeper pockets for higher upfront production budgets.
Beyond the streaming levy, the government dismissed a series of other committee calls: it will not conduct a targeted review of the Enterprise Investment Scheme’s impact on film; it has no plans to introduce 25% tax relief for independent films’ Prints & Advertising costs; and it rejects twice-yearly benchmarking of U.K. tax incentives against global competitors as “disproportionate.”
On the subject of Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC), the government pointed to recent enhancements—including a 53% relief rate for independent films and a 5% uplift for VFX implemented in April—but offered no commitment to further adjustments, deferring any future tax-policy decisions to the Chancellor’s broader fiscal events.
Workforce-related recommendations were also largely turned down. Instead of appointing a standalone Freelancers’ Commissioner, the government will create an internal “creative freelance champion”—a faster, leaner mechanism, in its view—for addressing gig-economy concerns.
Proposals for a guaranteed basic income or minimum rates above the national minimum wage, as well as statutory requirements to report skills-and-training spend, were likewise declined.
The government also held firm against rejoining Creative Europe as an associate member, offering that monitoring of EU policy developments need not be formalized via mandated six-monthly reports.
In closing, the response acknowledged the sector’s recent trials—ranging from COVID-19 shutdowns to the 2023 U.S. guild strikes—but reaffirmed the U.K.’s status as a global production hub.
With its £75 million Screen Growth Package already in motion, the government insists that preserving a flexible, investment-friendly environment—rooted in inward capital and local workforce development—remains the “bedrock of future growth.”
