Australian television drama is at a critical juncture with measures urgently needed to boost production levels, said Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner today following the release of Screen Australia's annual Drama Production Report.
Mr Deaner pointed to continued falls in the number of adult drama hours produced, with 2014-15 levels at their lowest point in a decade. Contributing to this trend are several factors, including a move to shorter series as well as sharp declines in commercial television commissioning.
Mr Deaner said that the full effects of the budget cuts to the ABC are yet to be felt and that, without intervention, the drama production figures for 2015/16 are likely to be even worse.
The industry expects a level of fluctuation from year to year, particularly in expenditure on local and international feature film production. But the hours of drama television are a worrying sign as television remains the engine room of the production sector.
After eight years of growth in adult drama expenditure, we have now seen two consecutive years of falls in spend with the total number of hours produced dropping from a peak of just over 500 hours in 2007-08 to closer to 400 hours in 2014-15. This the lowest figure in a decade, Mr Deaner said.
At this rate we are on track for Australian adult drama to be in the same situation as children's drama, where commercial networks merely meet their quota obligations only rather than commissioning over and above the quota.
Mr Deaner noted that, increasingly, second-run drama programs from New Zealand were being used by networks to fill quota, making it impossible for Australian programs to compete on a cost basis.
Shorter run series reflect the demands of the marketplace due to the popularity of six and eight episode dramas and, it can be argued, allow for a greater diversity of programming and provide opportunities for more creatives and production companies, but the flip side is that these short form dramas are incredibly expensive to establish when costs are not amortised over a long form series. This has led to a reliance on Screen Australia funding for these productions. Sustainability is the issue here, Mr Deaner said.
Mr Deaner pointed to modelling from PwC, commissioned by Screen Producers Australia and ASTRA, which indicated that an increase in the Producer Offset for Australian television to 40% (to equate with the Offset for feature films) would boost Australian television production.
We believe increasing the Offset would create significant investment opportunities for producers to explore, taking pressure off Screen Australia funding, and opening doors for more international finance and co-productions, Mr Deaner said.
Mr Deaner also said that it was an imperative that a new agreement be reached between Screen Producers Australia and Actors' Equity on the ATRRA agreement for repeats and residuals.
The industry has to come together to agree on a new ATRRA agreement which reflects the contemporary realities of the digital world. The agreement has not been substantially amended in 33 years. Networks and other investors are looking for ways to monetize their commissions across multiple platforms and plays, Mr Deaner said.
In terms of feature film production levels and expenditure, Mr Deaner noted that expenditure is above the five-year average, marginally down from last year. However about half of all feature film expenditure came from foreign feature films shooting in Australia. There has been a significant decrease in Australian feature film expenditure after three peak years driven by three big productions Gatsby, Mad Max: Fury Road and the Gods of Egypt
Essentially Australian feature film production has been static for a number of years. Screen Producers Australia is working hard with industry colleagues to get a low budget feature film scheme in place to increase the range and number of films being made here and to build creative pathways for emerging filmmakers, Mr Deaner said.
Media enquiries and interviews:
Tracey Mair, TM Publicity
Ph: 02 8333 9066 or 0419 221 493
Download the release.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Australian television drama is at a critical juncture with measures urgently needed to boost production levels, said Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner today following the release of Screen Australia's annual Drama Production Report.
