Submitted by Sisiwakanamaru t3_10oxrvx in movies
shpydar t1_j6ip1fb wrote
Reply to comment by Not-a-Dog420 in Australia to Impose Local Content Quotas on Streaming Platforms by Sisiwakanamaru
Canadian here.
So while a show or 3 produced here that meet our "Canadian Content" rules and are good enough to find an international audience they are the exception not the rule. We get a ton of crap dumped on us due to our quota system, the rest of the World just doesn't see all the garbage on Canadian airwaves so it makes it appear only quality content comes from Canada. It does not.
Yes we have the advantage of a really robust film and television infrastructure as many U.S. produced films and TV are made in Canada, the truth is our requirements to be "Canadian content" makes the majority of what is created in Canada not eligible to be considered "Canadian". So what happens? Streaming services don't invest in protectionism countries, instead they reduce the content from other locations to meet our quotas.
Content protectionism does not increase production of local content, instead it reduces content from other countries. Canadian Netflix has significantly less content than either U.S. or U.K. Netflix simply to meet our quotas.
Canada is not a good example of content censoring due to protectionism. We are a cautionary tale not an epitome.
cancerBronzeV t1_j6iz204 wrote
> Canadian Netflix has significantly less content than either U.S. or U.K. Netflix
That's just not true, even from the source you linked. Canada Netflix has the 3rd most extensive library, with 2.66% fewer titles than US Netflix. Sure it's a little less, but it's far far far from "significantly less content"
TheWaterBound t1_j6jg883 wrote
5,609 - 5,460 = 149
That's the relevant number, not the percentage. Is 149 significant? Honestly, I'm inclined to agree (anything over 200 would be significant), but the point is that you can't use a percentage to measure this.
Mirororim t1_j6jhgge wrote
>the point is that you can't use a percentage to measure this.
Why not? Seems somewhat arbitrary to say this. It sounds more like cope than anything honestly. "Oh the content library is so large that you should ignore the percentage because then it doesn't make the point I might want it to."
TheWaterBound t1_j6jklig wrote
Because huge numbers with tiny percentage differences are massively different.
Suppose the content library was 10,000 properties. You reduce that number by 2.66% and you're removing 266 properties. If you supposed the difference was 20% films, 40% short series and 40% traditional US style series, that would be, say, .226690+.4266360+.4266946 = just under 2,400 content hours.
What determines significant in this context is how much less stuff you've got to watch. I think having 200 fewer shows and movies is a significant difference.
>It sounds more like cope than anything honestly. "Oh the content library is so large that you should ignore the percentage because then it doesn't make the point I might want it to."
Search: construct validity.
Percentages are not a good way of measuring a lot of things. This is one of them.
Mirororim t1_j6oaab9 wrote
> Percentages are not a good way of measuring a lot of things.
True.
>This is one of them.
Not true, and you've failed to show that.
You could've made this argument on a quality front, like maybe the 2.66% that's missing on Netflix Canada but is available on Netflix US is the content that everyone watches, but you failed to do so (likely because I suspect that you'd be wrong to make this argument).
Just going "Total too big so no percentage please" means nothing.
>What determines significant in this context is how much less stuff you've got to watch. I think having 200 fewer shows and movies is a significant difference.
Why 200? Why not 250? Why not 5000? Why not 10? I want my 10 movies. If I don't have those 10 movies Americans have I'll scream. Give them to me.
TheWaterBound t1_j6oaohn wrote
>Why 200? Why not 250? Why not 5000? Why not 10? I want my 10 movies. If I don't have those 10 movies Americans have I'll scream. Give them to me.
Congratulations, you have made the argument for me.
cancerBronzeV t1_j6jgyep wrote
The exact number becomes less and less relevant as there's a greater total. If there were (I'm making up an absurd scenario), 1 million titles in one service, and 1 million + 149 in another, no one would call that a significant difference. On the other hand (another absurd scenario) if there were 1 title in one service and 150 in the other, everyone would say one is way way way way better.
While the exact number of titles is relevant, I would say percentage offers a more accurate picture. An even more thorough picture would be painted by seeing exactly what kinds of titles are in each; for example US Netflix has only 1 (one) more movie than Canada Netflix. The other 148 come from shows only. Now are those shows mostly reality garbage? Is it quality US TV not licensed in Canada? idk, the article doesn't say fully. 149 only seems big ignoring all other context.
TheWaterBound t1_j6jomxw wrote
>The exact number becomes less and less relevant as there's a greater total.
The percentage difference becomes less and less relevant as there's a greater total.
1,000,000 - 1,000,000 * ((100-2.66)/100) = 26,600
That is five times the size of the content library that Netflix has. It is an enormous number.
Now, you might argue that with over 900,000 things to watch are you really going to miss 26,600 properties? Obviously not because you wouldn't be able to keep track of everything in the first place. But if you didn't have a single hit show, then you'd miss that.
It is only the absolute numbers that matter because people don't watch the percentages, they watch the absolute numbers.
It's like with elections. A lot of US jurisdictions have automatic recount boundaries. They use numbers like 0.5 percentage points, which is a fifth of the difference we're talking about. The thing is that closeness doesn't scale. An election with a margin of 50 is just as close if 6,000 people voted for the winner as if 600,000 people voted, even though the percentage point difference is (assuming two candidates) 0.41841004 and 0.00416684. More to the point, the chance that the recount is going to change the election depends on the absolute margin, not the percentage point difference.
Percentages and percentage differences aren't always relevant to what you care about.
Consider batting averages. In baseball they're just a percentage. In cricket it really isn't but you could create an analogy... percentage of balls faced which result in runs... but that number is utterly meaningless. Similarly, you might express batting averages as a percentage of the best batting average in the team. This sounds kind of useful until you remember you care about batting averages because it gives you a guide to how likely a player is to help your team beat another team. You could add up the batting averages in your team and the other team and get an idea of which team is favoured (i.e. the one with the highest cumulative total) but not if you used percentages.
You have to choose a measurement that is appropriate for what you're trying to measure. This is called construct validity.
cancerBronzeV t1_j6jp8un wrote
Ya sure, the hit titles are all that's gonna be missed. Guess what? The hit Netflix shows are in both US and Canada. The ones that are not in both are older shows that have licensing issues in one of the countries. Those 149 titles that aren't in both are not the big shows that get constantly talked about on the internet as the hot new release you can't miss. If the hit titles are all that matters, that 149 number matters even less than I said before.
TheWaterBound t1_j6jqiy6 wrote
i.e. you reject your previous position entirely and agree that the percentage difference is utterly uninformative.
whollymammoth2018 t1_j6j6i93 wrote
I did like the Canadian content rules when I lived there for radio programming. I got introduced to stuff I never would have heard otherwise.
Mirororim t1_j6ji3yv wrote
I came into your comment somewhat willing to see you make this point, you have like 30 links, and not a single one of them actually shows that the definition of "Canadian content" could impact the size of Netflix Canada's library versus the US.
You finally have one post that at least makes this argument... But with no evidence whatsoever. "Cautionary tale" how? Where's the proof? How do I know the fact I can't watch Paranormal Activity on Netflix while an American can is a result of content rules versus some streaming rights issue?
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