Some Euskaltzales and Donostia parents took the step last November to boost the Disney Plus initiative in Euskera. They were in the middle of the Basque era and at the same time they learned that the US multinational cartoons and the Government of Catalonia completed the 2013 agreement: cataloging films already in Catalan, making the premieres on the platform in Catalan and the functioning of the platform would also be in Catalan.

Disney Plus has requested that the cartoons be folded to Euskera. In the drafting of this article 5,777 signatures have been collected. The agents are pleased, they have appeared in the Basque Parliament and the initiative has had a media impact. Subsequently, the Netflix platform has also strengthened its content broadcast activity in Euskera and received about 6,800 signatures. It is a general concern, consumer habits have changed, we see fewer and fewer traditional television channels and we are going less and less to movie theaters. They have been taken over by the platforms and in them the Basque is null.

Requests to Disney and the Basque Government

The request of the Basque Group in Donostia is twofold. On the one hand, it calls on the multinational The Walt Disney Company to stop discriminating against the Basques. This company also serves the content of producers such as Pixar, Marvel or Starwars. On the other hand, they call on the institutions of the territory of the Basque Country, and especially the Basque Government, to contact Disney to guarantee the rights of Euskaldunes children.

The drivers of the initiative have reflected the desired situation and the steps to reach it would be: that the functioning of the platform (for example, the navigation menu) be in Basque; that the films that have so far been translated into Basque are collected in the catalog (there are only UP and Zipi and Zape); that all the releases of the cinemas are made in Basque; and that the premieres are made in the Basque platform. This latter demand has been given great importance, as these types of digital platforms tend increasingly to be projected for the first time on the platform rather than première in cinemas.

ETB3 is chosen by 5% of children

In the 1980s and 1990s, children lived without the Internet, neither YouTubers nor digital platforms, and the only platform related to the audiovisual was the television screen. In Hego Euskal Herria there were only four chains: TVE1, TVE2, ETB1 and ETB2. Later on, private chains appeared. Basque children saw the ETB1 cartoons. According to data from the 1990 CIES research center, 70% of the children of the CAPV.

However, habits have changed considerably. In 2020, the ETB3 children's network was chosen by 5% of boys and girls. Another fact: in the last eight years, in the Spanish State, regular child television consumption has been reduced by 40%.

Digital platforms are going up. Netflix has grown by 40 percent in subscriptions in five years. This company, Amazon Prime Video and HBO have over 150 million subscribers worldwide. According to data from the CIES of October 2020, in Hego Euskal Herria 47% of vasco-speakers use a digital platform. Disney Plus has won 90 million subscribers in a year since its creation. In March 2020, the number of subscribers in the Spanish state increased by 200,000.

And what can you see in Basque on these digital sites? Almost nothing. On Netflix there are only movies Handia and Errementari, Prime Videon 0.005%, None on HBO, 40 movies on the platform filmin.es. The main animated nucleus, Disney, consists of over 500 films and over 3,000 serial sections and none is in Basque.

Three proposals to achieve the objective

Alex Aginagalde is a member of the initiative and in February he was in the Basque Parliament explaining his requests. He proposed to the parliamentary groups three ways that can be used to achieve the objectives.

Baga, publicize the social demand of the multinational Disney and reach an agreement. The Government of Catalonia has done so. Thanks to the agreement, since 2013 the cinemas have offered cartoons in Catalan. They've released 21 movies and they're all in the catalog.

On the other hand, they call on the authorities to regulate it legally. The proponents point to the need to guarantee the linguistic rights of boys and girls, and consider that it would be effective, as Basque producers are required, to issue children's films in Basque, to ask for the same to be done by external companies.

Higa, the Spanish State's General Audiovisual Communication Act is in the process and the initiative's proponents believe that it is the right time to place quotas on minority languages. The European directive states that 30% of the content of digital platforms should be produced in Europe. The Spanish draft law, for its part, proposes that 15% be state. The demand would be that half of this 15% be destined for productions in Basque, Catalan and Galician.

A much deeper problem

They have given priority to the specific request, but the group of Euskaltzales and parents of Donostia knows that the subject of audiovisual consumption in Basque has many branches and that a broader challenge must be met: the Basque language in cinemas barely exists, the sector of dubbing is in a poor state, lack of reflection on ETB.

The endless spaces in which the Basque country has no place open to us before the eyes. The Basque Group in Donostia will continue to echo the demands, but they are clear that the political leaders must intervene, because the linguistic rights of the Basque speakers are at stake.