Resumen de Portugal: : Amendment to the Cinema Act allows operators to pay less
Mariana Lameiras, Helena Sousa
Early this year, the Portuguese parliament approved the first amendment to the Cinema and Audiovisual Act (no. 55/2012, dated 6 September 2012) (see IRIS 2012-7/33 and IRIS 2013-4/26), which establishes reduced fees for operators. The act proposal was intended to provide more funding to this field of activity through the collection of a fee from pay-TV operators (namely, Zon/Optimus, MEO/PT, Cabovisão and Vodafone), an amount which is directed to the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual (ICA - Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual) for later investment in the sector. However, at the beginning of this year, their debt was around EUR 11 million of the fee correspondent to the preceding year, 2013. So, this government proposal to amend the Cinema Act was mostly due to non-payment of fees from pay-TV providers. The decision was aimed at reverting the situation by altering the conditions of fee collection and proposing a different scheme for fee collection.
