When coronavirus restrictions shut down production of most Australian television shows, it plunged the sector into a crisis that industry leaders are warning could affect how much viewers pay for entertainment in the future, and whether the next McLeod's Daughters or Secret Life of Us is ever made.
Key points:
- Some Australian content quotas have been suspended for commercial television because of coronavirus restrictions
- Most television production has shut down because of COVID-19
- Many writers and directors want the quotas to return and for quotas to be applied to streaming services
Writers, directors and media analysts have told the ABC that while coronavirus and its restrictions are new, they have simply added to the problems facing an industry that was already losing revenue and ratings.
With Australian audiences shifting to streaming services and networks forced to compete against tech giants like Facebook and Google for advertising revenue, industry leaders have started sounding the alarm.
They fear more is at stake than profits alone, saying we'll see fewer and fewer Australian shows made without intervention.
Director Nicholas Verso summed up that anxiety when he said he feared if young viewers from suburban Australia largely watched American shows, it could change what it was to be Australian.
The Australian shows we used to get for free
When writer Jane Allen worked on Channel Seven's popular police drama Blue Heelers in the 1990s, she said writers would joke "that we made content to keep people watching between ads".
She said it was an era of appointment television where whole families would watch shows together each week and TV stations only competed among themselves for viewers and advertising revenue.
Ms Allen said shows like Blue Heelers, All Saints, A Country Practice and Homicide were so popular they were part of Australian life, and they were free for viewers to watch.
Fans of Blue Heelers would send in letters to the show's creators and the newspapers covered the death of fictional character Maggie Doyle, played by four-time Gold Logie award-winning actress Lisa McCune.
Ms Allen said she believed another show she wrote for, The Secret Life of Us, changed Australian culture.
Where did all the money go?
Ms Allen said the changes in the television landscape had been obvious for some time.
Where viewers got about 44 episodes of Blue Heelers to watch each year in the 1990s, she said new Australian shows now usually did not have more than 12 episodes.
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Veteran media analyst Peter Cox is the man who studies graphs and spreadsheets and sharemarket reports to tell the story of the Australian media through profits and losses.
He said revenue for commercial TV stations had been dropping by about 5-6 per cent annually in recent years.
He said digital platforms like Google and Facebook had taken much of that lost advertising revenue.
But he said commercial networks had also been losing audiences to streaming services, with their ratings dropping.
Mr Cox said with that combined drop in revenue and ratings, commercial stations were now trying to create cheap television, much of which he described as "nearly unwatchable".
Fight for advertising dollars
The chief executive of Free TV, Bridget Fair, is an advocate for the commercial networks.
Ms Fair said the commercial networks had seen ratings rise in recent months, largely driven by a desire for news on the coronavirus pandemic, but revenue had also fallen.
She said digital platforms like Google and Facebook had been unfairly using content made by Australian networks without fair compensation, and that had been having a significant impact on the financial position of the networks.
The Australian Government recently announced it would develop a mandatory code of conduct with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to address bargaining power imbalances between media companies and digital platforms
Google did not respond to the ABC's questions on the issue.
In a statement, Facebook said it was disappointed by the Federal Government's decision.
"We believe that strong innovation and more transparency around the distribution of news content is critical to building a sustainable news ecosystem," it said.
Do we still want Australian shows?
Mr Cox said Australian dramas had been losing audiences for about 10 to 15 years.
Debra Oswald helped create the Channel 10 hit show Offspring and also wrote for shows like Police Rescue and Bananas in Pyjamas.
She disagrees with Mr Cox.
While commercial television ratings have been dropping, she said Australian shows had held ground to a greater extent than American shows on free-to-air stations.
She does not believe the audience move from commercial television to streaming services demonstrates a rejection of local content by Australians.
She said streaming audiences simply did not have much Australian content to choose from on those platforms.
Writer and director Nicholas Verso has directed children's shows for the ABC, his movie Boys In The Trees is on Stan and Netflix and he has just finished working on a telemovie in the US.
He said the Australian industry had always struggled with the "Hollywood" side of television, where our shows must compete against dramas produced overseas on much bigger budgets.
But he thinks with the right financial backing there is no reason why Australia couldn't produce a show on the scale of The Crown or Game of Thrones for an international streaming service.
Are streaming services the answer?
Well, that depends who you ask.
Mr Cox said he was concerned about the streaming service business model, saying they have significant debt.
"The thing with Netflix is it has been wanting to gain market share and it has been willing to sacrifice profitability in the short-run for long-term market share.
"For me that is one of the things that is wrong with the digital equation because that day never comes when they actually make a profit."
But that analysis is disputed by the streaming services.
Netflix has publicly spoken about its plan to raise debt to heavily invest in new content.
Its chief financial officer Spencer Adam Neumann told analysts last month that production spending had been affected by filming shutdowns because of coronavirus restrictions.
He gave this summary of Netflix's financial plan.
"It's still a multi-year path to sustained free cash flow positive," he said.
"It's just going to be a little bit choppier getting there and 2019 will still be our maximum negative year."
Netflix has also reportedly added about 16 million new subscribers during the coronavirus pandemic.
Stan did not respond to the ABC.
Mr Cox said he believed there were already too many streaming services competing and subscription costs could rise, or standards drop in the future, as companies try to shore up market share and make a profit.
But Mr Verso said he thought streaming services could offer the chance for audiences to see different kinds of Australian shows made, pointing to Netflix's Tidelands as an example.
Netflix has created a number of high-profile shows in Australia, including comedian Hannah Gadsby's special Nanette and co-productions with Australian networks, including Glitch and Stateless with the ABC.
Ms Oswald said she believed Australians would pay for entertainment and streamers were not facing the same battles of newspapers to attract subscribers.
Are quotas sustainable?
Well, that also depends who you speak to.
Ms Fair said commercial networks supported the Federal Government's recent decision to suspend Australian content quotas for drama, documentaries and children's shows that are usually imposed on them for this year, and possibly next, as they deal with production shutdowns because of COVID-19 restrictions.
The networks were already advocating for some of those quotas to be lifted, including quotas for children's television, where she said some shows had audiences of less than 1,000 people.
But Ms Fair said networks still supported a quota of 55 per cent of content shown between 6am and midnight being Australian — which also still applies for this year — and remains supportive of other incentives to make Australian television.
The federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said in a media release earlier this month the decision was made to retain the 55 per cent quota because "it remains critically important that we have Australian voices on Australian TV".
But many in the industry see things differently to the networks.
Ms Allen described the decision to suspend quotas as "kicking an industry while it is down" and said she feared the quotas would not return.
She is one of many people in the television industry calling for streaming services to also have Australian content quotas — something the Federal Government says it is considering.
"The Government is accelerating its work to determine the future extent of Australian content obligations on free-to-air television broadcasters, and whether these should apply to streaming services," Mr Fletcher said.
"This work is critical to the future of the culturally and economically important Australian film and television production sector."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiamh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA1LTAzL2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWltcGFjdC1vbi1hdXN0cmFsaWFuLXR2LWFuZC1zdHJlYW1pbmctc2VydmljZXMvMTIxNzQyMzbSASdodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTIxNzQyMzY?oc=5
2020-05-02 22:09:29Z
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