A placeholder pretending to be regulation
Netflix now reaches 52.2% of New Zealanders in an average four-week period, or 2,292,000 viewers. Disney+ has grown 47.6% since the pandemic to reach 1,058,000 viewers. Amazon Prime has surged 166.3% to 835,000. Over 3 million New Zealanders aged 14 and older, roughly 70% of the eligible population, now watch subscription TV every month.
For all that market dominance, the current regulatory ask is almost comically small. Under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Commercial Video on-Demand Levy Regulations 2021, each streaming platform pays an annual levy of $57,200 excluding GST. That is not a typo. It is a compliance charge that was never designed to be a revenue contribution, and it has functioned as a regulatory placeholder while the real debate played out elsewhere.
The real debate has now arrived.
The $50 million hole nobody filled
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s February 2025 discussion document laid out the structural damage. Netflix had 38% daily reach, ahead of TVNZ1 at 34%. Yet as of September 2024, Netflix held fewer than 10 New Zealand titles. Disney and Apple+ had none. Amazon Prime had just over 10. Sky’s NEON, the local platform, carried more than 50.
The advertising revenue that once funded local production has migrated to those global platforms. Spada, the screen production industry body, estimates that more than $50 million came out of local production investment when broadcasters cut spending roughly two years ago, with no meaningful recovery since.
Spada President Irene Gardiner put it bluntly in May: “The conversation can no longer be about whether streaming regulation is needed, but how quickly it is implemented.”
Australia acted, New Zealand watched
Australia passed streaming legislation in late November 2025. From January 2026, major streamers with more than 1 million local subscribers must spend 10% of total Australian expenditure or 7.5% of local revenues on homegrown content. That is a material obligation with teeth.
Gardiner warned in January that Australia’s policy had “materially changed the competitive landscape for screen production in the region” with “immediate implications for where global platforms choose to invest, commission and develop projects.” She added: “The streamers currently pay no tax in New Zealand, face no regulation, and use broadband infrastructure that was partially funded by our Government.”
New Zealand cannot simply copy the Australian model. Its international trade commitments make quota-based obligations legally complex because explicit cultural carve-outs were not secured in several agreements. That is why Spada has pushed for a revenue-based levy instead, with financial modelling putting a 5% levy on major streamers’ NZ revenue at approximately $25 million annually. France, Canada, and Germany already operate similar models.
The government has the mandate but not the urgency
The public consultation on the MCH’s media reform proposals closed in March 2025. Of the 197 submissions received, approximately 80% of 147 submissions on the local content investment proposal were supportive. That is about as close to a consensus as public consultation gets.
Despite that mandate, Budget 2026 provided no new funding or framework. Gardiner’s frustration was clear: “Australia has acted. Additional international streaming platforms are entering the New Zealand market. Yet our funding settings remain largely unchanged. The gap is widening and the cost of delay is increasing.”
The screen sector’s economic footprint is not trivial. MBIE’s 2024 report found the sector employed 24,096 people and generated $3.3 billion in revenue as of 2021, with Auckland and Wellington accounting for nearly all of it. Those are the jobs and revenues at risk as production investment drifts to Australia.
The template that matters more than the levy
The screen sector debate is worth watching for a reason that extends well beyond entertainment. The regulatory architecture required to implement a revenue-based levy on global digital platforms, including subscriber data reporting, NZ revenue disclosure, and compliance monitoring, does not currently exist. Building it for streaming creates a template.
Every major digital platform extracting revenue from New Zealand consumers and businesses operates without a physical presence or meaningful local tax liability. The question of how to price that access is not unique to Netflix. Once the government builds the machinery to collect revenue data from one category of global platform, the precedent is set for others.
For media buyers, advertisers, and businesses whose customers are migrating their attention to platforms with no local obligations, the direction is already clear. The only real variable is whether this government acts before the next election forces the question.
Sources
- Roy Morgan: Disney+ and Amazon Prime in New Zealand show powerful growth in viewership of Subscription TV services since pandemic (2025-06)
- MCH: Media Reform — Modernising regulation and content funding arrangements for New Zealand (discussion document) (2025-02)
- MCH: Media Reform Summary of Submissions June 2025 (2025-06)
- Scoop: Budget 2026 Highlights Urgent Need For Modern Streaming Framework, Says Spada (2026-05)
- Deadline: New Zealand’s Spada Says Production At Risk As Aussie Quotas Begin (2026-01)
- Witchdoctor: Without streaming quotas NZ may lose its own voice forever (2026-01)