Foreign made ads at an all time high on Ten
The Ten Network last year aired the biggest proportion of foreign-made commercials in the history of Australia’s free TV channels, Mumbrella can reveal.
An analysis by Mumbrella of information on the Australian Communications and Media Authority website shows that for the first time, the proportion of foreign-produced ads on Ten rose above 15%. The legal limit is 20%.
Last year Ten carried 15.1% foreign made ads; Seven carried 13.1%; and Nine caried 8%. The 2008 figures were put on the ACMA website yesterday.
When details started being collected in 1992, Nine had the smallest number of foreign produced commercials, with just 4.7%. At that stage Seven had 5.5% and Ten was on 8.1%.
But in the ensuing years, a growing amount of TV advertising shown in Australia has been made or repurposed from other parts of the world.
The networks are constrained by the Australian Content in Advertising Standard, covered by the Broadcasting Services Act. It states that “from 6am to midnight, the commercial free-to-air television networks are required to broadcast Australian-produced advertisements for at least 80 per cent of their advertising time.”
Ads are classified as Australian or foreign made by Commercials Advice, which is owned by the free TV networks.
However, the number of individual advertisements classified as Australian is also at an all time high, even if they are getting less airtime. A total of 84,924 ads were classified as Aussie last year – up significantly on the 58,116 of a year previously. Of those 84,924, a total of 37,112 were classified as new with the majority of the rest having gone through minor revisions.
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Interesting!, i had NO idea we actually had a Legal Limit? good to know though
Wonder how many of the local ones are are just ‘Replace voice and add new graphic’ and call it ‘Aussie made’ though ?
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Hi Jas,
There are what appear to be fairly tight guidelines on what counts as Australian (anyone in the know care to comment if there are loopholes?). They are:
(1) An advertisement is Australian produced if:
it is wholly pre-produced, filmed and post-produced in Australia or New Zealand or partly in Australia and partly in New Zealand; or
if this is not the case – Australians have exercised direction over the creative and administrative aspects of pre-production, filming and post-production.
(2) Australians are taken to exercise direction over the creative and administrative aspects of pre-production, filming and post-production of an advertisement if the advertisement meets at least six of the following criteria:
the producer of the advertisement (other than a producer employed by the advertising agency) is Australian
the principal director is Australian
the director of photography is Australian
the writers of the script and storyboards are Australian
the visual editing is carried out by Australians
the production of the sound track, including recording, sound editing and mixing, is carried out by Australians
the role of featured talent appearing in the advertisement is filled by Australians
all performance, including voice over, on the sound track is by Australians
the music used in the advertisement is composed by Australians
if animation and related computer graphic techniques form a substantial and integral part of the advertisement – these are carried out by Australians.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella