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Comment by phobosdeimos | Hacker News Reader

Everyone here actively despises the local film industry. We do not need to inflict Dutch television on the world. Thats torture.

Good shows should earn their ratings, not be force fed- if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies. Netflix is not a public broadcaster.

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The problem with this line of thinking is that it will pretty much never be cost-efficient to make a German language movie with a limited market compared to a English movie. No matter how great it is. It is even worse for smaller countries like Finland or Netherlands. There will NEVER be comparable ratings for a Dutch comedy show vs Modern Family with a global audience. So unless regulated, investments will shift to the lowest common denominator, ie. English.

On the other hand, it is absolutely possible to create good content with moderate/low budgets. And European local audiences love and watch films or TV series in their local languages... when these are passably good.

But they don't like crap, and most of the local production is, unfortunately, just a shitty version of US stuff. The same bland generic ideas, but with worse acting, scripts, and production, on a lower budget.

Movies might be harder, but I really liked "Dark" which is a Netflix made German show [0].

[0]: https://www.thelocal.de/20171122/netflix-premiers-first-ever...

There's plenty of Finnish TV shows that are popular within Finland. Children and the elderly do not have English literacy rates as high as the rest of the population. Most kids shows are either produced locally or dubbed in Finnish.

But, isn't this literally the point of the European common market? Germans make the best pretzels, Italians make the best olive oil, and French make the best cheese, and all the countries can share their exports with each other with no trade barriers.

Why should protectionism be embraced for cultural exports when the EU was literally established to eliminate protectionism for other exports?

Because "Freedom to speech" and "Freedom of thought, conscience and religion" are basic human rights.

Most of those are not freedoms. How many people actually ask their kids which primary language they want to speak, and which religion they want to follow beforeahead?

Then switch to English. Having multiple world languages is a giant waste of resources on a dubious premise, that slightly different perspectives of speakers bring more on the table.

Not to mention, that this is one of the reasons we still have borders, wars, etc, etc.

When good shows are made, everyone wants to see them, and streaming services jump to offer them. There are a lot of examples of this working, such as Netflix buying Spain's "Money heist / la casa de papel", or german "Babylon Berlin", or belgian "Tabula Rasa".

Also Netflix is actually opening a European production hub thus investing in local culture the good way.

> Everyone here actively despises the local film industry. We do not need to inflict Dutch television on the world. Thats torture.

I don't understand. Do the Dutch hate their own programmes? Why would they bother making shows they don't want to watch?

> if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies.

I'm not sure they need them, just that it helps promote it. These shows might not necessarily be record-smashing-popular, but local film/TV from other countries routinely makes it's way to the US with sizable audiences (despite the US drowning in it's own media). Even childrens shows often have broad appeal. (as just a few examples, see 'Degrassi' from Canada, 'PJ Masks' and 'Miraculous' from France, 'Sarah and Duck' from Britain, 'Octonauts' from Ireland).

Some of those are funded in part from "cultural quotas" (various implementations of similar ideas) such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content . But it doesn't mean they aren't popular or good on their own.

> I don't understand. Do the Dutch hate their own programmes? Why would they bother making shows they don't want to watch?

Same reason any culture creates art, by choice. Not all art has to be accepted (or forced) and many times the value to its creator and/or a small subset of patrons is enough to justify it.

>> if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies. Netflix is not a public broadcaster.

> I'm not sure they need them, just that it helps promote it

I added more context to the original quote. I assume the original poster didn't mean "subsidies" as financial assistance, but instead misused the word to mean restrictions on foreign content. I think most agree grants for the arts have value due to some forms of art being unsustainable on their own.

> I assume the original poster didn't mean "subsidies" as financial assistance I, obviously, have no idea what original poster meant but forcing streaming services to buy local titles is, basically, financial assistance.

> Do the Dutch hate their own programmes?

Yep.

> Why would they bother making shows they don't want to watch?

Subsidies.

So you in support of dumping then?

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