Aussie drama spend dives as cheap docos find favour
Free-to-air broadcasters have cut spending on Australian drama by more than half since 2018, as cheaper documentaries find favour in harder times.
According to new data released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, production spend for Australian dramas, both adult and children, was just $48 million in the most recent financial year.
This has fallen from $103 million in 2018.
In contrast, documentary spend has doubled in the same time period, albeit from a much smaller base, from $10.4 million to $20.9 million.
The public demand for documentaries from all sources has skyrocketed over the same time. This is driven by international spectacles — like the 2024 Netflix smash The Menendez Brothers, ESPN’s exhaustive Michael Jordan The Last Dance, and the pandemic viral sensation Tiger King — as well as the rise of true crime podcasts, and their inevitable televisual spin-offs.
Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner said the government should legislate local content quotas for subsciption video services.
“Both adult and kids’ drama remain at unsustainably low levels. We cannot expect Australian stories to thrive without real structural change,” Deaner was quoted as saying in a press release.
“Drama is just one of several genres where commercial funding has been allowed to wither, with no other part of the system stepping in to fill the void,”
The cost of producing an Australian drama is far higher than sending a documentary journalist with a microphone and a cameraman out into the field. And, judging by the Oztam ratings figures, Australians are not even that keen on watching Australian drama.
During 2023, just one Australian drama was in the 50 most-watched TV programs of the year – a single episode of Home and Away, which sat at #46.
In contrast, the 16 most-watched shows were Australian sporting matches. Expenditure on Australian sporting rights has hovered between $500 million and $640 million annually, eclipsing both drama and documentary spend.
Light entertainment spending has also increased since FY2018 — from $487 million (including the $1.17 million spent that year on a single variety show) to $577 million – an increase of $90 million that also explains where a lot of that Australian drama money is going.
Episodes of Married at First Sight, and The Block, two of Nine’s biggest reality TV, were the only non-sports programs to breach the top 20 of the 2023 most-watched list.
During a Nine investor call in February, CEO Matt Stanton predicted a good third quarter, based on increased advertising spend around Married at First Sight and the Australian Open.
On the Nine Network’s 2025 programming slate, there are four news and current affair programs, 15 reality or game show series, and just local drama – the New Zealand-produced Madam. Plus, there’s a lot of sport.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Ironic positioning below this article with the piece Screen Australia commits $7.6 million for 100 scripted projects backing diverse storytelling. Sigh .. local audiences are not automatically enchanted with local drama simply because it is local drama that Screen Australia decides must be told to meet diverse storytelling quotas. Screen Australia is a kabal that follows it’s own dogma and with hubris ignore the realities of this article and what local audiences enjoy from local broadcasters/streamers.
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