8 - Content regulation in the audio-visual sector and the WTO

Summary

Introduction

Though the question of content regulation was not on the agenda of the GATS negotiations that led to the Annex on Telecommunications and the Fourth Protocol, it is quite clear that the next steps in the gradual opening of national markets to foreign telecom service suppliers will touch directly or indirectly upon that question. The US-Mexico DBS Protocol of November 1996, annexed to the US-Mexico Satellite Agreement signed earlier in April 1996, as well as the US-Argentina Framework Agreement and Protocol for Direct-to-Home Satellite Services and Fixed-Satellite Services of 5 June 1998, can be seen as a prototype of things to come. Significantly, the two Protocols, according to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), limit domestic content restrictions either side can place on satellite programming to only a ‘modicum’ of total programming, ‘thereby increasing opportunities for US programme content producers’. Technological development, convergence and the globalisation of the economy, more than anything else, are at the root of this movement towards the opening of national telecommunication and communication markets and, as shown by the incredible development of the Internet, it will be difficult to stop that movement. But, at the same time, there are issues behind content regulation which are very real public concerns and often go beyond the parameters of trade. Content regulation, among other things, is an important part of cultural policy in many countries. To predict the disappearance of content regulation in the audio-visual sector fromthat point of view may be somewhat premature.