Re: Meanwhile, in the real world...
That's a possibility; the BBC would, probably, have to pay a bit more for some imported material, which was now being watched across the continent. (Not least, because there might be less demand from, say, German broadcasters for a localised version now, thanks to many people there being happy to watch the English).
There is a distinct possibility that some big ticket programmes may not be localised for other markets, or may not attract such large audiences in those markets, if people have already been able to view the UK/American (and I'm thinking this could often be the case with US imports, say Desperate Housewives) versions via British broadcasters, thanks to the lifting of restrictions.
The BBC and Sky would perhaps be the least disadvantaged because both have some sort of mechanism for getting fees from people. ITV and Channel 4, for example don't, and would have to either give stuff away to people on the continent for no extra return (while likely paying extra for the content in the first place), or spend a lot of money on adding some sort of mechanism to allow for people to give them money.
Meanwhile, what of the foreign broadcaster that was previously showing a blockbuster import, dubbed into the local language? There is a possibility that they might find that the audience shrinks once people can get the non-dubbed version elsewhere. How much it will shrink we don't know, but isn't it at least possible, and worth considering that a loss of potential ad revenue because of this could then affect the amount of money that the broadcaster has to create original material in their own language.
And that's surely what the article was driving at - there could be unintended consequences in a variety of ways which would result in far less money being available for local material, while a wave of generic hollywood and euro-pap does far better.
To a degree, of course, some of this has been handled in the UK already, albeit on a smaller scale. Look at S4C, which receives subsidy specifically to create programmes in the local language, and to a lesser degree BBC Alba.
I'm not quiet sure how they handle this in Ireland - if TG4 has a subsidy specifically to support the language - but that may be the way that things end up being done, if people elsewhere in Europe are keen to retain the production of good quality material in their own language.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
