The slow death of Australian children’s TV drama
In this cross-posting from The Conversation, Anna Potter and Huw Walmsley-Evans argue kids’ TV in Australia is in a dire state, and networks, parents, producers and policy makers need to start asking some questions.
Free-to-air TV networks have to commission certain amounts of children’s programs each year. But in recent years there’s been a dismaying lack of new live action shows, or recognisably Australian content. Instead, local children’s TV has become dominated by animation with little sense of place.
Ebonnie Masini and Rian McLean in Round the Twist (1989), one of Australia’s most fondly remembered children’s TV dramas. Source: Australian Children’s Television Foundation
Australian children’s TV may have recently picked up an Emmy Kids award for the ABCME animation Doodles, but otherwise kids’ TV in this country is in a dire state. 
This is a shame, because Australia’s most fondly remembered children’s TV shows are live action productions such as Mortified, Playschool, Blue Water High, and Round the Twist. When asked in a 2015 survey to name their favourite childhood TV characters, most people chose Round the Twist siblings Linda and Bronson, followed by Mortified’s Taylor Fry.
Before the 2009 launch of ABCME (originally ABC3), the vast majority of the children’s live action drama produced here was commissioned by advertiser-funded networks Seven, Nine and Ten. Series such as Spellbinders, Ocean Girl, H20: Just Add Water and Lockie Leonard proved popular with Australian children, many of whom still remember them as adults.
