If Netflix is the most complacent internet giant, it has no intention of playing Santa Claus.
Still, he could afford it. This year, the small DVD mail-order company, founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, will generate sales of $35 billion. For comparison, it is seven times the annual budget of the city of Montreal. When you have that much money and 260 million subscribers around the world, you can get away with anything.
This week, Reed Hastings paid $5 billion to air World Wrestling Entertainment's weekly show Raw for 10 years. The series, well known to wrestling fans, is now in its 1,600th broadcast and features wrestlers who give the impression that their sport is “real”. CM Punk (real name Jack Brooks) returns to the arena for Raw despite being 45 years old. Starting next January, fans will be able to watch Raw on Netflix for as long as they want, as well as other World Wrestling specials.
But what about the contribution of Netflix and other Internet giants to our television, as required by the new Ottawa law? Nothing concrete has come out yet and the CRTC, which has to set the rules and framework, is not very forthcoming on the issue.
A certain amount of goodwill
When we began to debate the American giants' contribution to our broadcasting system, Netflix showed some goodwill. In 2017, Mélanie Joly, then Minister of Heritage, returned from California with in her pocket, as she said, Netflix's “signed” pledge, committing to $500 million in Canada over five years to spend. We never saw the signed promise, but in any case, Netflix spent more than that $500 million in the country from 2017 to 2023.
The truth is that only a small part of the amount was spent on original Canadian productions and even less on French-language productions. To my knowledge, Until Decline is the only feature film from Quebec that we have to thank Netflix for.
JUST crumbs
Unless our requirements for a film or series to be declared “Canadian” and eligible for tax credits and other usual benefits do not change, this feature film will likely remain the only one in its category for a long time to come. Netflix has bought some comedy shows and donated a few tens of thousands of dollars to the film, television and comedy community and special schools, but these are just crumbs falling from a very well-filled table.
Last October, Netflix hired Ginette Viens to sort through the projects that had flooded the company with optimistic Quebec producers. Madame Viens has extensive experience. She served as vice president at Pixcom and at QMI after being general creative director and variety director at TVA. Given that Netflix only used its services for six months, one might wonder whether its job isn't more about getting rid of too many projects than unearthing a few rare gems that would allow Netflix to make a real contribution to our audiovisual repertoire . We will know in the coming months.