CAA, WME and UTA Lead Coalition to Pass Law Requiring Streamers to Spend Half Their Budgets on Independent Productions

In a rare alliance among Hollywood's top talent agencies, CAA, UTA and WME have joined as founding members of the American Entertainment Alliance, which seeks to require U.S. law to force streaming providers such as Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max and Disney+ to spend at least 50% of their budgets on independent productions. […]

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In a rare team-up of major Hollywood talent agencies, CAA, UTA and WME have joined forces as founding members of the American Entertainment Alliance - which, among other things, wants US law to force streaming providers like Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max and Disney+ to spend at least 50% of their budgets on independent productions.

Along with the big three agencies, other founding members of the coalition include: Anonymous Content, Blumhouse, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, Imagine Entertainment, Jeff Sagansky, Legendary Entertainment, MRC, North Road, Producers United, Propagate Content and Ziffren Brittenham. The AEA made the announcement in a story in The New York Times on Thursday.

"As film and television increasingly merge, we need a regulatory framework that puts creators first, protects industry workers and preserves competition," UTA vice president and board member Jay Sours said in a statement.

"Ending market consolidation in entertainment is in the best interests of all Americans — from the bottom line of the crew to the writers and actors to the audience at home," says the Entertainment Alliance of America on its newly launched website. The coalition says U.S. entertainment businesses are "at risk of collapse because of the imbalance of power in the U.S. film and television industry."

AEA is "a coalition of independent production companies, talent agencies and entertainment leaders focused on strengthening competition, expanding opportunities for independent producers and creators, and supporting film and television production in the United States," the group said in a statement. “Etihad is fundamentally restructuring the entertainment business. Consolidation and broadcast studios have dramatically limited the market for independent content and disrupted the economics of film and television.

In addition to a law requiring streamers to dedicate half of their content budgets to content from US studios or independent producers, the American Entertainment Alliance wants to see licensing and syndication rights for TV shows and movies revert to the production company (or the outside studio behind the project) after a few years.

The AEA also wants to "require transparency in the algorithms that determine what audiences discover, to prohibit platform self-preference."

In a statement in response to the AEA's announcement, the Streaming Innovation Alliance — whose members include Netflix, Disney, NBCU's Peacock, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount (now merged as Skydance) and TelevisaUnivision—criticized the call for "overt government coercion" governing the greenlight process.

"American audiences in the streaming age have greater access to a wider variety of movies and shows. At any time in history, viewers have decided when, where and how to watch at a variety of prices (including free ad-based options) that make sense for their families." "That's why more than 70 percent of Americans view streaming favorably (with even greater support among younger consumers and in communities of color) and nearly 75 percent think streaming services today should be the same or think they watch less."

The Streaming Innovation Alliance added, "Adding blanket government mandates to the greenlight process only slows down production and kills creative risk-taking — turning back the clock on decades of streaming-based progress."

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