ASTRA claims nearly a billion dollars invested in Australian subscription TV productions last year
The subscription television industry invested $918.3 million in local productions during the 2016/17 financial year, claims a survey released today by the industry’s peak body.
Produced for the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA) by PwC, the survey showed showed a 2.8% increase on the previous year’s investment value with a total of 266,833 hours of Australian content produced.
Andrew Maiden, CEO of ASTRA
“The growth of global streaming services has inundated Australian audiences with foreign content, making it critical that the Australian television sector ups its investment in high-quality productions that tell local stories to our people,” ASTRA CEO, Andrew Maiden, said in a media statement.
“To meet this challenge, in the past year alone subscription television has broadcast an additional 25,000 hours of quality Australian content.
“Our members’ investment has created thousands of jobs as they film content for television shows in more than 200 cities and towns around Australia,” Mr Maiden continued.
The survey also found an improvement in the representation of women on subscription television boards (up two percentage points to 34%) and in senior executive roles (up nine percentage points to 43%).
However the percentage of women television CEOs fell three percentage points to 24% following the consolidation of several leadership roles during the year.
Local sport, drama and news were the greatest areas of growth with an additional $37 million spent on the three genres in the year ending 30 June 2017. Sport accounted for a greater share of investment than any other genre.
Investment also included the production of local dramas including Wentworth, Top of the Lake and Picnic at Hanging Rock, Nat Geo’s Miracle Hospital, along with Selling Houses Australia and Great Australian Bake-Off.
The year also saw the creation of Fox League, a subscription TV channel dedicated to Rugby League fans.
