Screen Australia reveals mixed year for film production, but TV breaks records
Feature film production in Australia failed to maintain last year’s high which had been boosted by the production of The Great Gatsby, according to Screen Australia’s Drama Report for 2012/13.
Screen Australia reported feature production declined by 16 per cent from last year’s high of $297 million.
Screen Australia’s chief executive Ruth Harley said: “The drop in Australian feature film activity reflects the cyclical nature of feature film production, which while down on last year, still achieved a strong result with compelling Australian stories including The Rover and Tracks.”
Screen Australia is essentially an off balance sheet ABC SBS funding vehicle for programs that suit these viewers. Only 4 out of 10 dramas went to the three networks, one to Foxtel (sop), and 5 to ABC/SBS. Naturally Screen Australia support does not accord with mainstream Australia – with rating shares or number of channels shares. In children’s drama, 2 out of 4 went to ABC/SBS.
Pretty biased and should therefore be added to ABC/SBS budgets costs to the Commonwealth.
In a pretty abysmal annual report, Screen Australia didn’t even publish the Australian feature films percentage of box office that they financed (15) – something that that Screen Australia normally does. Probably too embarrassing. I suspect that this has been the lowest performance from Screen Australia support as a percentage of total box offices (FY13 circa $1.1b) in recent years, and is an indictment on the feature film picking skills of the organisation. It looks like less than 2.5%. Screen Australia was doing around an already pathetic 4% (before Red Dog’s outlier) in prior years. 3 only made mention this year – $14.5m for Sapphires, Kath and Kimberrella at $6.08m, and $4.08m from Mental.
Screen Australian total business cost would be better spent on direct ABC/SBS programming support in proportion to ratings, and the balance a reduction in commercial network licence fees, but the offset being increased drama /local content requirement.
They should all be sacked.