The challenges of producing local TV drama (2024)

Giving Australian grown-ups the chance to watch their own new drama on the small screen still isn’t taken seriously enough. And it’s worth asking if the biggest local stakeholder – the taxpaying public – is getting cultural bang for its buck.

The latest data shows the public contribution to all new local adult and children’s drama – excluding projects for social media – is about $260 million a year, or a third of the total cost. Public broadcasters also contribute to the funding. The federal government doesn’t just use sticks – quotas, charters and so on – to give Australians the opportunity to see local drama: along with state governments, it also uses carrots such astax rebates and direct investment.

The Broadcasting Services Act says local content on commercial free-to-air channels is about “developing and reflecting a sense of Australian identity, character and cultural diversity” and covering “matters of local significance”. Inexplicably, “Australian look and feel” equates to – according to a recent Australian Communications and Media Authority document – “strong and vibrant communities” and “a shared sense of who we are”. Does it really? Always?

“Television is entertainment,” says Brian Rosen, producer and former chief executive of the now defunct Film Finance Corporation. He refutes any notion that drama should promote good citizenship. Nevertheless, he says, drama that highlights social issues and promotes understanding is created under the current system: “SBS and the ABC have to educate, inform and entertain.” Think last year’s SBS series Safe Home, underpinned by stories of intimate partner violence.

Rosen says all Australian television drama is “cultural content” and judging whether one has more cultural value than another generally stems from snobbery. Showrunner and Fremantle Australia executive Jason Herbison, who makes Neighbours (Ten) quickly due to its price point, would agree.

“With so much screen time to fill, you have to mine the minutiae. In the fictional world of Neighbours, three days in Ramsay Street are spread over five episodes. In one episode of a one-hour drama, there might be acar crash, a long recovery and someone going to jail. Only time, resources and story-pacing differentiates soap and drama, but many don’t like to see that.”

Some local viewers don’t care for local drama. Some focus on the latest high-end series. Others want the thrill of a police procedural – good ones sell like hot cakes abroad – beloved characters or a good laugh.

The tax rebate that attracts foreign drama to use Australia as a location is at the same rate as that for local television drama. Although they have charters, there have never been formal obligations for ABC TV and SBS to screen local drama, nor Netflix, Disney+ and other subscription streaming services. Technically, Seven, Nine and Ten are no longer required to run any drama for adults, although Nine’s sister platform Stan provides it for those willing to pay. New Zealand shows count as Australian content.

Fixing some of these issues would futureproof homegrown drama.

Screen Australia figures show that 50 significant local dramas and comedy dramas aimed at adults went into production in 2022-23, excluding social media projects. Australians must creatively control a show for it to qualify for quotas and funding. This prevents Australian stories being made by foreigners but, because the rules about what’s on screen are loose, it allows, for example, Baz Luhrmann to make American-focused features such as Elvis and The Great Gatsby.

Applicants for visas to live in Australia must sign a statement saying they’ll act in accordance with Australian values, including “a fair go for all that embraces mutual respect, tolerance, compassion … [and] equality of opportunity for all”. Television broadcasting licensees aren’t subject to public service obligations except in the case of work for children – unless the creators are newly arrived immigrants.

Shows touch on issues in very different ways. Of the very popular Heartbreak High (Netflix), executive producer and Fremantle Australia head of scripted Carly Heaton says: “It made young people feel like they’d been seen and understood … It generated conversation. The first series featured discussion on consent, the second toxic masculinity.”

Drama series Total Control and comedy Utopia (both ABC) skewer political processes – Utopia by highlighting absurdity, Total Control using Indigenous themes. The anthology series Fires (ABC) directly homes in on the danger and tragedy of the infernos Australia now suffers, while fire acts as a device to escalate the drama in Heat (Ten).

In theory at least, public money goes to production companies and rarely to platforms. On the available information, only Fremantle and Lingo Pictures had more than two dramas on that list of 50 shows.

Financing is not for the faint-hearted. Lingo’s Helen Bowden says “it’s very difficult to make globally competitive content below about $2.5 million per hour”. Sources say some now cost $5 million an hour, five times Melbourne’s median house price. Offshore finance is vital – and influential. Herbison produced Heat and Riptide under a deal with Channel 5, hence the presence of British leads. Casting Scottish actor Peter Mullan in Lingo’s just-aired New Zealand series After the Party (ABC) helped secure a sale from Britain’s Channel 4.

“Casting requirements could be detrimental to making the best possible program but you’re always trying for that not to happen,” says Bowden. “The best thing for business is to do what’s best for the show and its prospects and that’s best for culture too. Every time you’re trying to raise the bar.”

The consistent presence of actors from Britain – one of Australia’s biggest television trading partners – can make Australia seem less multicultural on screen than it is. Power rests with educated, privileged, middle-class white folk for whom diversity might not come naturally. Australian drama has been “infuriatingly slow to change but it is”, says Bowden, citing Easy Tiger’s upcoming Four Years Later (SBS), an eight-part romance withIndian leads set in India and Australia. She’s proud of how many new and emerging people were on her own Erotic Stories (SBS): “It was so exciting to go on set and see a lot of women, people of colour and of different gender identities, marching about and doing agreat job.”

The other two Lingo shows among the 50 are Prosper (Stan), a family succession drama set in a megachurch, and Queen of Oz(ABC), in which British comedian Catherine Tate plays a scandal-prone spare princess in Australia.

Screen Australia nudges the industry towards diversity. “The importance of telling Australian stories really cuts through but also the challenges faced in bringing them to life,” says new chief executive Deirdre Brennan. She says there’s a need to develop a deeper understanding of Australian audiences, how the population has evolved and what’s culturally relevant and meaningful to them. She’s had more than 100 meetings in her first 100 days in office, as part of an operational review.

Whether more importance needs to be placed on culture and whether the agency is “spreading itself too thin” falls under the review, she says. “The industry continues to bifurcate the cultural with the commercial, but I don’t believe these are mutually exclusive.”

The biggest slice of taxpayer funding comes from non-discretionary, functional tax rebates. Nearly all 50 shows probably got them – secrecy provisions seal lips. Screen Australia’s discretionary investment backed at least 22 of them – confidentiality means three titles aren’t named. None were Fremantle shows, whose fifth 2022-23 show is Totally Completely Fine (Stan). Heaton is circ*mspect about Screen Australia’s lack of interest: “Maybe we had three the year before. They’ve got a hard job. Limited funds have to be spread equitably and fairly over many projects.”

Entwined considerations feed into choosing what shows to pursue: “There’s the idea and creativity,” says Heaton. “Is it unique and different? Secondly, is it viable? Will it getup and have an impact? Thirdly, who are the talent?”

Large amounts of offshore finance arrived with the cashed-up international streamers, in another illustration of the global push and pull. Prime Video put buckets of money into The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart with the help of rebates. Ditto Netflix and Boy Swallows Universe. But Screen Australia warns that international streamers are more likely than locals – Binge, Stan, broadcasters – to invest in Australian-made content that is set overseas or that isn’t specifically Australian.

The argument that Australian creators provide an Australian point of view and this equates to local content is convenient, as it means they can make what they please. Would the public know? The greatest cultural impact comes from shows that hit the zeitgeist because they’re widely seen and discussed. The challenge is knowing in advance which ones they’ll be.

The challenges of producing local TV drama (2024)

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