‘They judge us in the same vein’: The Twelve, Colin From Accounts & more Foxtel shows bringing Aussie stories to the world
Foxtel Group is bringing first-class Australian stories to the world, and as Alison Hurbert-Burns, the company's executive director of entertainment content and commissioning tells Mumbrella - in a tide high, all boats rise.
The pressures of following the first season of a smash-hit series are similar to how musicians feel about following up a hit album, according to Alison Hurbert-Burns, Foxtel Group’s executive director of entertainment content and commissioning.
It’s a good problem to have, and one she’s had to deal with a lot of the past year, with both Colin From Accounts and The Twelve, starring Sam Neill, finding international success and critical plaudits.
In the case of The Twelve – an anthology where each season is built around a small-town jury and the case at trial -there was an added challenge built into the bones of the show. The series won three AACTA Awards in 2022, including Best Miniseries, and was also the most nominated drama series at last year’s TV Week Logie Awards.
Neill, who won the Most Popular Actor Logie for season one, is the only connective tissue between the series. This requires a balancing act between leaning into the endless possibilities a refresh offers, while not discarding the elements that made season one so captivating. Aside from Neill, everything is new.
“He’s going to a different crime, but everything else is fresh,” Hurbert-Burns explains of season two currently airing on BINGE.
“So, we still had to come up with that same sense of compelling drama. Is this a crime you’d want to crack? Is it an interesting story? But we also were really pretty punchy in terms of assessing season one and going, ‘How can we make it better?’
“We’re always striving to do better and not sit on our laurels.”
This was part of the reduction from ten episodes to eight, as well as focusing in on less jurors, despite the numeric title: “It’s almost like getting a brand new commission with the framework of something that you know already works.”
Hamish Lewis, head of scripted at Warner Bros. Discovery, explains to Mumbrella how they saw audiences grow week to week on both Foxtel and BINGE, which drove the decision to roll this season out weekly, as appointment TV.
“Day one of season two involved the BINGE and Foxtel teams, in a room at Warner Brothers going, ‘Right, give us the stats, tell us what worked, tell us what didn’t work…’
The Twelve
“It’s a totally collaborative process in that sense, where you’re a little more hamstrung to the creative if you’re not in an anthology – where you’re beholden to the writers, or the character’s journey, and you’re restricted to where they could possibly go. You can’t go in a completely new direction, but we have the ability to — bar Sam — go, ‘Well, what works, what doesn’t work?’ – and really tailor the jury, the court case, the courtroom, the location, the crime itself, the episode count, everything, to what works for the platform.”
The show’s international distributor, Fifth Season, has also been successful in finding a larger audience for the show.
“It’s doing incredibly well on ITVX in the UK,” Lewis says. “They’ve just renewed it for a season two. So we’re able to also talk to them and ask what works internationally [and] what doesn’t?
“For the most part, they were like, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing, because it really landed well in the UK.'”
The success of Colin From Accounts informed the roll out for both The Twelve and the season series.
“We are experimenting with it all the time,” Hurbert-Burns says of scheduling decisions, “because we just feel that what The Twelve was able to do was to get people talking, we saw that as well with Colin.”
Colin From Accounts
This slow burn was behind the decision to schedule Colin’s eight-episode run over a five-week schedule.
“We started with one, finished with one, and then had two a week, like a mini-movie – and we were finding in the social commentary, people were looking forward to it on a Thursday night – it just kept a whole lot more conversation.
“It didn’t come and go in a week or two. It allowed it to kind of take its space in the culture clutter for a few more weeks. We hope that we see the same in the season two of The Twelve.” Likewise, The Twelve will run eight episodes over six weeks.
Hurbert-Burns looks after acquisitions for Foxtel as well, which means as well as taking a show like The Twelve to market, she’s also looking for content to buy.
“We’re always meeting with commissioners and the equivalent roles at all of the major platforms,” she explains. “And I’m a big believer that all boats rise. So when something cuts through, like when Colin really had its moment in the UK, we were at the next markets at Nipcom and Content London and people are like, ‘Comedy, Australia, Oh my God!’
“And then Fisk does well on Netflix. And then all of a sudden people are really looking at Deadlock.”
Although she demures when I suggest Foxtel has led the charge, Hurbert-Burns believes Australian television is having a moment, internationally.
“I think it’s the stage we are in the streaming cycle,” she reasons, “where all platforms are challenged and are having to look at different ways of getting great content onto their platforms. In territories like the UK, where they have really healthy commissioning budgets and much more of their slate is commissioned rather than purchased in, I think they are really looking to Australia and going, ‘This can perform in a way that is maybe beyond a tape sale, but is it a different cost profile?’
“We’re certainly finding with either colleagues in America or other platforms, we’re really thinking about co-productions in a different way, not just, ‘I’m going out to the world and grabbing a whole lot of money and trying to get someone else to fund my thing’, but how can we find stories that can really work?”
High Country
Foxtel’s next two shows are already pre-sold into the UK “onto major, major platforms”, following High Country, which recently premiered in a plum BBC One slot, following Casualty in what Hurbert-Burns calls “a really big crime slot” on the station.
“They’re actually doing two episodes back to back, which seems amazing for it to be on BBC One on a Saturday night,” she marvels.
“Knowing that we’re going out to market and we’ve already got England taken care of, that allows us to make the shows at the ambition that we have as well.
“Because when you’ve got some of the world’s best shows from platforms around the world, the scary thing I find every time when I’m producing something, to be completely honest with you, is these have to sit in a carousel with the best of the best. They’re sitting up there with Emmy-nominated and BAFTA-winning shows and our audience don’t go, ‘Oh, I can expect less from this because it’s Australian.’
“They judge us in the same vein. So, that’s our burning ambition. That’s why I get out of bed every day.”
The Twelve is currently airing on BINGE and Foxtel.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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