[DRAFT #1b] Access to International Events

[Tinhampton]

Character count: 3,346
Word count: 523

ICly by Alexander Smith, Tinhamptonian Delegate-Ambassador to the World Assembly.

OOC:

• The BBC was able to broadcast twenty-four live streams of the Rio Olympics five years ago. This year, they can only broadcast two because the International Olympic Committee decided to award broadcasting rights for Europe (rather than to each country in Europe), which were inevitably gobbled up by Discovery/Eurosport. Now that is decline.
• "DAZN have been given exclusive global rights to [broadcast the UEFA Women's Champions League], with the exception of China and its territories in the Middle East and North Africa."

Access to International Events
A resolution to promote funding and the development of education and the arts.

Category: Education and Creativity

Area of Effect: Free Press

Proposed by: Tinhampton

---

Believing that all inhabitants of member states deserve to be able to watch and listen to the World Assembly's debates - whether they consider this body to be a festering snakepit or a venue for well-meaning international development - and to major sporting events involving their member in real time, as well as to receive high-quality analysis and commentary on those debates and sporting events as they happen,

Recognising that the awarding of broadcasting rights to noteworthy international events, such as WA debates and major sporting tournaments, is sometimes made on the basis of who can broadcast those events to entire groups of nations, rather than to singular nations,

Convinced that the above process invariably benefits paywalled, multinational broadcasting services to the detriment of public service broadcasters who focus on a single nation, who are then required to haggle with the winners of the multinational-level broadcasting rights for significantly inferior coverage than would be the case if they were allowed to bid on broadcasting rights just for their own nation, and

Concluding that this body can do something to ensure that access to excellent coverage of WA debates and sporting events is based on willingness to learn, not ability to pay...

The General Assembly hereby:

1. defines, for the purposes of this resolution and in relation to any given member state, a "major event" as any one of:
   
   1. all debates on General Assembly proposals during their drafting phase, after they have been submitted, and while they are at vote,
   2. any other event organised under the aegis of the World Assembly or its committees which the WA has not determined that the public should not be allowed to view, and
   3. any international sporting competition organised under the aegis of an organisation based in any member state for which that member's national team has qualified for or was otherwise eligible to qualify for, including any such multidisciplinary sporting competition involving representatives of that member,
2. requires that, when entering into negotiations about which broadcaster should broadcast each major event in any given member state, the organisers of that major event only enter into such negotiations with broadcasters (and only open bidding and invitations to tender) on the national level, rather than for a group of countries,
3. further requires that:
   
   1. all broadcasters who have won broadcasting rights for debates on General Assembly proposals in any given member state broadcast all debates on resolutions at vote in the General Assembly free of charge, and
   2. all broadcasters who have won broadcasting rights for international sporting competitions involving any given member state broadcast the entirety of the relevant competitions in full and free of charge, where possible, and
4. demands that each member state broadcast in full the proceedings of its national legislature to all of its inhabitants, and each of its subnational legislatures to the inhabitants of those subnational areas in question, free of charge (where those legislatures exist), except to ensure that information that is commercially sensitive, could jeopardise the security of that member state, or would unduly violate any person's privacy if broadcast is not broadcast.

[Tinhampton]

Reserved for previous drafts

[Hulldom]

OOC: So C-SPAN or BBC Parliament but for the WA?

[Tinhampton]

As an extremely long aside, I am currently considering deleting Article c and changing (what is now) Article d to read "further requires that all broadcasters who have won broadcasting rights for any major event broadcast the entirety of that major event free of charge." If anybody has any thoughts on this proposal - as well as what is written in OP - please do let me know.

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OOC: So C-SPAN or BBC Parliament but for the WA?

I guess so

[Bananaistan]

OOC: How is the sports thing not metagaming by legislating in non-members? Also, Eurosport is free to air ffs.

"The idea that some fool would pay to broadcast these proceedings is laughable. More like you'd have to pay someone to broadcast it and pay someone else to watch it.

"Also multi-national broadcasters are a thing. They and organisers should not be forced to negotiate to piece-meal deals with in different states."

[Tinhampton]

OOC: How is the sports thing not metagaming by legislating in non-members?

For the time being, the scope of Article a(iii) has been restricted to sporting events organised by entities based in member states.

Also, Eurosport is free to air ffs.

Wrong(?). The Eurosport Player was one of the few free applications on the Nintendo 3DS Store but - rather laughably - it only had the weekly bloopers reel available (as far as I recall).

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"The idea that some fool would pay to broadcast these proceedings is laughable. More like you'd have to pay someone to broadcast it and pay someone else to watch it.

"Also multi-national broadcasters are a thing. They and organisers should not be forced to negotiate to piece-meal deals with in different states."

Diana Knight, Media and Telecommunications Minister of Tinhampton (and leader of Your Tinhampton!-New Christian Democratic Party): This is actually Smith's brainchild, but the city's Assembly I normally serve in is on summer holiday right now and he's asked me to defend this proposal on his behalf. You may note that nothing in this proposal says that anybody is necessarily paying for the privilege of beaming debates into the homes of several trillion people. Regarding your second point, uninational broadcasters are also a thing - as the preamble acknowledges.

[Tinhampton]

Knight: The Tinhamptonian Assembly's recess still ends in about three weeks, does it not? Any longer and Alex Smith might leave it in his personal wastebasket for a few months!

[Tinhampton]

Smith: I'm afraid that what Diana said has turned out to be very true. Does anybody else have any more thoughts about what I've written? I think you do...

[Hulldom]

“I could possibly be convinced to vote for this if and only if the part about sporting events are removed.”

[Bears Armed]

With reagards to subclause 'A.iii'

any international sporting competition organised under the aegis of an organisation based in any member state for which that member's national team has qualified for or was otherwise eligible to qualify for, including any such multidisciplinary sporting competition involving representatives of that member,

In some international competitions the organizing body for any particular iteration of that contest is one set up specifically for this purpose in the host nation but there is also a "permanent" international organisation that oversees the entire series of tournaments: How is this clause supposed to work for iterations in which those two bodies are based in different nations and only one of those nations is W.A. member? For that matter, what about events co-hosted by a member nation and a non-member?

(e.g. 1: in RL, the International Olympic Committee is based in Switzerland but each set of games has its own organising committee based in the host nation e.g. the 'London 2012 Olympics Committee'.
e.g. 2: in NS, Association Football's 'NS World Cup' is always co-hosted.)

[Barfleur]

OOC: In response to BA, would it make a difference if the proposal specifically targeted the host nation, meaning the nation (or nations) wherein the actual events are held? Although that could lead to an interesting situation where a competition is co-hosted by a member nation and a non-member nation, and the events held in the member nation are covered by this proposal (and, therefore, publicly accessible) while the other events in the same competition are not.

[Insidium]

I agree that pay channels shouldn't be allowed to monopolize coverage of sports events, but the author of this proposal is making this so much more complicated than it has to be. Ofcom (the British broadcast regulator) has rules similar in effect to what the author is proposing, but much simpler.

Ofcom simply says that pay channels can't be given rights to broadcast certain sports events unless a free-to-air channel meeting certain criteria has those same rights, and that exceptions can be made on a case-to-case basis by regulators. I think the proposal deserves rewriting to make it more straightforward and similar to Ofcom's rules.