Why it’s time to end the policy limbo threatening Australian children’s TV
Despite a glut of international successes, Australian children’s TV is currently in a policy limbo, explains Anna Potter in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Two Australian children’s TV programs, First Day and What’s It Like To Experience a Disability?, won prestigious Prix Jeunesse awards in May. Both were commissioned by the ABC’s children’s channel ABC ME. Both remind us that Australian children’s television consistently punches above its weight on the international stage.
Yet, despite these recent successes, Australian children’s TV is in a policy limbo. Amid recent and ongoing government reviews into the future of local screen content, uncertainty reigns on issues such as the impact of Netflix and other streaming services, the fate of local content quotas and funding for original local children’s TV more generally.
What we do know is that Australia’s commercial free-to-air networks continue to lobby for the removal of quotas for locally made children’s content (which they usually only just meet). We know too that cuts to the ABC budget threaten local production.
Drama specifically produced for children is of vital importance.
The problems associated with a government funded ABC are numerous, and can only be alleviated by sensitive and responsible government, and the breakdown of internal cultural/political factions.
A big ask whichever way you look at it.
There is a strong case for a funded children’s theatre and associated media production in each state. When I say “funded” I do not necessarily mean government funded, and I certainly don’t mean it to be a political whipping post like the ABC.