While the government is showing support and generosity to foreign filmmakers and commercial television interests, it seems less inclined to demonstrate similar largesse to its own creators.
The federal government’s decision to water down commercial TV networks’s content quotas until the end of the year is another body-blow to the arts.
Charlotte Best in the Australian Netflix original drama Tidelands (2018). Research last year found that only around 1% of the Netflix Australia catalogue was Australian content.
Hoodlum Entertainment
Netflix may be inching closer to becoming a “local” media company, with an increased presence in our small but profitable national market. Will this lead to more locally-made content?
Evie Macdonald in First Day (2017), which won a prestigious children’s television award earlier this year.
Epic Films
Amid endless reviews into the future of local screen content, uncertainty reigns on issues such as the impact of Netflix, the fate of local content quotas and funding for original children’s TV.
Sean Keenan in Australian sci-fi drama Glitch. The show’s second season was a co-production between ABC TV and Netflix.
ABC TV/IMDB
New ABS figures on film, TV and digital gaming show that subscription broadcasters and online content creators are booming. Yet local content quotas only apply to free-to-air broadcasters.
Strict security at the South African Broadcasting Corporation before the country’s 2004 national elections.
EPA/Jon Hrusa
Jared Borkum, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Many broadcasters around the world enforce local content quotas to ensure their television industries’ survival. But the success of these measures varies widely.