Finding an Australian voice within children’s television production
In recent decades Australia has built a global reputation for its children’s television content. Anna Potter warns that increasingly the Australian voice in much of that content is being lost due to a variety of global factors.
The Australian children’s movie Paper Planes has taken more than $8.3m dollars since its January 15 opening.
That success with local audiences is a reassuring sign that parents will still fork out for their children to watch quality Australian screen content, especially when it’s released in school holidays.
Whether or not you’ve seen Paper Planes, if you’re an Australian taxpayer you’re already supporting local children’s screen content, particularly television, through the tax breaks and direct funding schemes provided to the Australian independent screen production sector by the Australian government.
These supports were first introduced in the early 1980s, soon after the policy instrument the Children’s Television Standards (CTS), in response to public concern about the lack of quality, locally produced children’s television available at the time.
Content quotas enshrined in the CTS apply to Australia’s free-to-air commercial networks, generating demand for the kind of children’s television, particularly drama, that’s always at risk of market failure. Astonishingly ABC’s dedicated children’s channel ABC3 does not have any quotas for Australian content, meaning investment in local programs can be jettisoned by the ABC when times get tough, as occurred in the mid-2000s.
Despite its lack of quotas, ABC3 has become an important source of commissions since its 2009 launch, particularly for live action drama.
The idea of supporting a struggling independent screen production sector to create the quality television that helps situate Australian children in their own culture is an appealing one.
Australian taxpayers’ investment has underpinned some of Australia’s most successful children’s television, including Dance Academy, H20: Just Add Water, Round the Twist and Lockie Leonard.
The sale of these programs in global markets (a vital component of production budgets) has allowed Australian children’s television to develop an international reputation for excellence and for punching above its weight in the production of high quality television for children.
The relatively simple business of television was transformed however by the 2001 introduction of digital transmission.
The ensuing audience – and ad revenue – fragmentation encouraged commercial networks to reduce their investment in children’s television.
Under these conditions, animation immediately gains a competitive advantage because generally it’s cheaper to make.
Animation also tends to be less culturally specific than live action drama, making it much easier to revoice and distribute in global media markets.
So despite the best intentions of analogue-era policy makers, a great deal of the recent children’s television produced with taxpayer funds in order to situate Australian children in their own culture neither looks nor sounds Australian.
The local production industry has also changed radically since content quotas and tax breaks were first introduced, with transnational ‘super-indie’ production companies buying up large swathes of the sector since the mid-2000s.
Many Australian production companies are now only nominally independent, with Matchbox Pictures, Screentime, Southern Star and Playmaker all under the auspices of much larger, often US-based corporations.
These companies, which remain under Australian ‘creative control’, nonetheless continue to qualify for the state subsidies on offer to those producing local content, including children’s television.
Between 2009 and 2013 for example, while it was majority owned by a US conglomerate, Matchbox received over $9m in Screen Australia funding.
Australian children deserve to see high quality locally made screen content including television that reflects their country, its voices and its stories back to them, allowing them to ‘dream their own dreams’. This kind of television is general too expensive to make without some form of subsidy; fortunately the democratic will to fund it indirectly through taxation exists.
Unfortunately however, despite the obvious benefits of digital to the child audience, which include children’s channel ABC3 and multi-platform delivery, raising funds to produce quality Australian children’s television has never been more difficult.
Government funding cannot and should not replace networks’ investment in children’s television, and it is unreasonable to expect ABC3 to assume sole responsibility for catering to the Australian child audience.
The trick now is for policy makers, broadcasters, producers and the Australian public to ensure that public investment in local children’s screen content deliver public value by producing television that situates Australian children in their own culture.
Otherwise state support for children’s television becomes nothing more than a measure of industry protectionism, something which never intended as a policy outcome.
Anna Potter is a senior lecturer in screen and media studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast, and author of the new book, Creativity, Culture & Commerce, which examines the current challenges for Australian-produced Children’s TV.
Anna the commercial free to air networks still have a minimum children’s quota for Australian drama. But they pay as little as possible and if they can help it won’t pay the minimum licence fee that Screen Australia sets as a precondition to equity investment. The commercials have for decades now looked for any means possible to pay as little as possible. Official co-productions fulfil the quota and animation is driven by subsidy money from European and Canadian countries and creatively they drive the productions. Local commercial networks don’t give a toss. The only way to ensure some live action drama is to introduce a sub quota so these animated euro puddings don’t dominate. There is no political will to do this from the Coalition or Labor. Great shows such as the fabulous Round The Twist will become a memory. It is sad.
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Anna Potter makes some good points here.
Children’s television is a disaster area in Australia. By contrast, internationally it is a busy time for Kids’ producers. In many countries there are channels, laws or incentives for the production of media for this demographic. In Australia there is the ABC – the other players are enforced and unwilling partners in the production of kids TV. There are around twenty live action kids programs being produced in Canada annually. The list of dramas above, while certainly not comprehensive, does indicate the paucity of material that is produced in Australia.
What we currently have is not really an industry which is ridiculous as Australian kids producers are well regarded internationally. There are some reasonably successful producers, particularly in animation, but no one is making a motza out of this.
Sadly, without properly legislated demands on the commercial broadcasters and additional funds for the ABC, the kids TV industry will virtually disappear and the export revenue, jobs and knowledge with it.
Too many players, too few slots, too little money.
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Anna Potter highlights the critical need for the Australian Government to strengthen its policy and target Screen Australia Funding to support local Australian television producers over US conglomerates such as Matchbox and any other overseas corporations.
As Anna rightly points out, “Australian children deserve to see high quality locally made screen content including television that reflects their country, its voices and its stories back to them, allowing them to ‘dream their own dreams’. This kind of television is general too expensive to make without some form of subsidy; fortunately the democratic will to fund it indirectly through taxation exists”.
The alarming thing is how DIFFICULT it is for local production companies such as SEA EAGLE PRODUCTIONS Darwin to access television production funding. We have a full television license 4 channels including Aboriginal TV, Education TV, Tourism TV and TV NT. We have a proven track record and have a full staff of Indigenous people in every area of radio, television, and production but we cannot get funding and have tried for years – the lion’s share goes to ABC, SBS and NITV ($75m plus). I don’t begrudge this however there should be even distribution across Australia and an increase in Australian Government funding for locally produced television content.
We have countless opportunities to produce and televise children’s television content but no opportunity to do so. We need to
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