Government proposal for a financial obligation on audiovisual productions

The obligation will require international operators to contribute to the financing of domestic audiovisual content.
It will bring additional private funding to the sector.
The estimated annual revenue from the media service fee is approximately EUR 5 to 9 million, representing a significant increase in funding for the audiovisual industry, depending on the final level of the fee.
The estimated growth impact on the business operations of domestic audiovisual productions is approximately EUR 15 to 25 million annually, depending on the final scope of the obligation.
This corresponds to an estimated increase of around 5 to 10 per cent in the turnover of companies producing series and films.

The Government Programme of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s Government includes a commitment to assess the economic impacts of imposing a financial contribution obligation on on-demand audiovisual media services on the audiovisual market and the sector’s growth potential. The programme also states that the Government will promote fair competition in the media sector and in the digital advertising market while taking into account the position of international platform giants.

Furthermore, in its budget session on 3 September 2025, the Government decided to prepare and introduce a payment obligation for on-demand programme services enabled by EU legislation. The fee will be collected from operators that provide streaming services in Finland. The revenue from these charges will go towards supporting domestic film and TV production.

The implementation of the obligation has been endorsed both in the memorandum of the parliamentary working group on YLE and in the Growth Strategy for the Creative Economy.

In line with the Government Programme, the Ministry of Education and Culture commissioned a study in December 2023 from Petri Kemppinen on issues related to the implementation of Article 13(2) of the AVMS Directive. The study was published in April 2024: Finnish model for an investment obligation for on-demand programme services.

The study proposes that the obligation enabled by the AVMS Directive should be implemented in a manner that would cause as little harm as possible to the position of domestic commercial operators that already make major investments, while encouraging international operators to participate in the financing of productions in Finland.