Australia has experienced a “collapse” of investment in drama production, according to the country’s screen producers body.
The 2023/24 Screen Australia Drama Report, released today, points to a market facing myriad financial problems, with the number of Australian productions down 17.5% and a “large reduction in overseas investment from streaming services,” the SPA claimed in a release.
While Australia has been on a hot streak when it comes to co-productions and growing its standing as an international production hub via various state and national incentive system’s the reports numbers in stark opposition. There has been a “continued massive collapse of commercial television investment in the absence of effective regulation,” the body argued.
Total expenditure in the Australian screen industry, which includes TV and film, is down a massive 29% year-on-year to A$1.7B ($1.1B), which the SPA billed as a “surprise,” despite expecting a dip.
Spending on Australian titles has fallen A$199M or 18%, from A$1.1M in 2022/23 to A$929M in 2023/24, and dropped from 120 titles to 99. The most significant drop within this was in domestic free-to-air drama, with spending down by 32%. The FTA sector primarily comprises pubcasters the ABC and SBS, and commercial nets Seven, Nine and Ten.
The SPA put an increase in subscription TV and SVOD titles and spending “mainly due to welcomed increased commissioning by local streamer Stan,” which has ordered shows such as Black Snow Season 2 and Good Cop/BadCop in the past year. This investment was “unmatched by international platforms,” claimed the SPA, with Stan contributed financing to 12 titles, Netflix and Binge to four titles each, and Paramount+ and Prime Video to two in 2023/24.
The SPA claimed these falls could have been avoided had the government enacted legislation to impose local quotas on streamers. This was due to come into effect on July 1, but remains in limbo with levy rates unclear and streamers unwilling to fully commit to the country’s original production sector until they are clear on expectations.
There was also a 42% fall in expenditure on Australian theatrical features and a 28% drop in spending on Australian kid TV and streaming titles, the latter of which was termed as a “continued evidence of the downward trend for children’s content.”
“These figures lay bare what is an ongoing letdown for Australians from international streaming businesses that have disrupted the existing screen ecosystem and received so much from governments in production subsidies and the Australian public by way of subscriptions, but continue to return so little to Australians by way of an appropriate level of Australian content these platforms,” said Matthew Deaner, CEO of the SPA.
However, Deaner claimed that “the government continues to have at its fingertips a range of known and successful policy levers it could deploy to redress these trends,” adding: “Some of these require the government to stand up for Australians against large global interests, as has happened before, but this must be done again and quickly to bring about what otherwise looks set to be a continuing slide that will affect Australian jobs and Australian stories on our screens.”
Deaner and the SPA have been consistent critics of Netflix, Prime Video and the other global streamers, claiming in July last year that the SVODs acted like “super-trawlers” offering local producers “unfair” deals with “unrealistic” budgets, and this year claiming the failure to implement streaming regulation meant Australia was “on track to develop more as a service provider for Hollywood productions” than an originator of programming.