Gaumont president: ‘If we lose our IP, we lose our identity’

Isabelle Degeorges, president of Gaumont Television, has urged Europe to maintain its regulation of streamers to ensure countries retain their own identities on screen.

Gaumont has been a regular partner of US-based streamers, most notably with Netflix hit Lupin which has been recently extended into a fourth season, but Degeorges said Europe’s industry must “fight” to maintain its position.

“If we don’t own the IP, we lose our identity, I’m sure of that,” she told delegates here at Conecta Fiction in Cuenca, Spain.

“Whether it is France or Spain or anywhere else, it is not a question of regulation or obligation, it is about us needing to keep our identity. If we don’t own the IP, my feeling is that everything belongs to the US, and then you have [a show] that has their identity, but [produced] in our country.”

Degeorges comments come as Europe’s regulation of streamers enters a vital phase, with the future of regulatory framework the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) facing a potential review next year.

The Gaumont TV president highlighted how IP ownership of shows had shifted over recent years, with Lupin - produced prior to the most recent regulation - being owned by Netflix rather than her company.

Degeorges, who is also behind Apple TV+ drama A L’Ombre des Forêts and France TV’s long-running series Art of Crime, added that the ability to create a library was vital to the health of the European industry and said there must be push-back to US efforts to retain more rights.

“With the new administration in the US, they don’t care - they just want to keep everything,” she continued, highlighting US president Donald Trump’s dislike of European production incentives.

“Our [tax] credits are not acceptable to them but we will fight, we will fight forever,” she said, generating a spontaneous round of applause in the audience.

“In France, we are very luck, we live in a country where regulation is everywhere, we love regulation,” Degeorges said, adding that key US players such as Netflix had adapted and “respected” local laws, without a detrimental effect on relationships.