How likely are the Dutch to watch Dutch-language content?
I've mentioned before that due to the Canadian government's policies, I follow a policy that assumes if it's Canadian it's crap. One of my exceptions to that rule is French-language content from Quebec that makes it into English markets in Canada, as there it has a language barrier to break through. Given that exception, I was wondering how much of an influence language barriers are. I've previously noted that European TV fails its 50% European content target despite having a vastly larger population base than Canada which forcibly imposes its 50% content quota.
What that piece didn't get into was the language barrier and it's effect, given that the EU is broken up into areas with various predominant languages. Then I found some information on the popularity of Dutch-language content in Dutch theatres:
Dutch films were increasingly popular ... The share of Dutch films in the number of visits rose from 14% to over 20%.
Funnily enough, the second most popular title was a nature documentary entitled The New Wilderness (when translated) - though Canada's Wood Buffalo National Park is larger than the entire country of the Netherlands.
The number of people who speak Dutch as their primary language is about 23 million, compared to Canada's population of about 33 million yet the Dutch watching 20% Dutch-language content in theatres seems to represent an increase.
English-speaking Canada doesn't face that language barrier and constitutes only a small fraction of the English-speaking world. Even in the non-English-speaking world, you may see English content being produced - e.g. French TV shows are now being filmed in English in an attempt to gain an international audience, being then dubbed into French for domestic broadcast. In other words, I think my policy remains justified. Unfortunately, unless being broadcast internationally for the most part if I discover a film or TV series is Canadian it's even to justify not watching it.
(The second exception to my if-it's-Canadian-it's-crap policy is content filmed in Canada by foreign companies for their markets where content quotas aren't relevant - e.g. I've found myself enjoying the show Almost Human which is filmed in Vancouver but for American networks).