Following Nine’s decline in profits, CEO Mike Sneesby said that “well-intended” new content laws could push costs up for its streaming platform Stan, and force production overseas.
The government is currently considering regulation that would force global players such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to spend a certain amount of money producing local content.
However, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, Sneesby was less keen on the idea and said local streaming providers such as Stan might miss out on the best local productions if this happens.
Sneesby said the move would also drive up production costs with bad consequences for the Australian media industry.
“When the big players are forced to create content here and create it on a global scale … a lot of the best ideas will end up going to international players,” he said.
“You get squeezed on cost, and you get squeezed down the pecking order in the great Australian projects that you can get access to. The unintended consequence of that is squeezing out local players. Fast-forward 10 years, the global players will go ‘we’re glad that the government forced us to do that because we actually ended up squeezing all the local players out.’”
The move would force Nine to spend more money elsewhere he said: “It’ll be likely that [Stan] will have to direct some of its spend offshore, which either means more licensing, or more things co-produced in international markets. You do actually push investment out and force local businesses to look for other ways of competing.”
The comments come after Nine saw its profits drop in the first half of the fiscal year.
