Record investment in Pay TV production
ASTRA has announced a record $893 million invested in local television production over 2015 / 16.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under Subscription
Pay TV lobby group ASTRA has announced a record $893 million invested in local television production over 2015 / 16.
$893,107,864 is a 12.2 percent increase on last year’s investment of $796 million.
STV broadcast 242,000 hours of Australian content, 60,000 as premiere content and exported more than 30,000 hours of Australian content to overseas markets.
“Australian audiences respond overwhelmingly to local stories told well, which is why the subscription television industry has increased its investment in local production again this year,” ASTRA CEO Andrew Maiden said.
“Our record investment has funded 60,000 hours of first-run Australian productions filmed in every capital city, together with more than 100 regional towns and communities across the country, creating jobs for local people as well as television industry workers.”
The subscription television industry employed 8,339 people on 30 June 2016.
“We’ve grown the television production sector by $900 million and added more than 8000 jobs, even in the face of protected competitors and the arrival of unregulated new streaming services,” he said.
“If Canberra takes off the regulatory handbrake by winding back our competitors’ protections and lowering the regulatory burden, we will invest more and create extra jobs.”
Drama increased 35% thanks to titles such as Secret City, Wentworth and The Kettering Incident. Local Sport is up 14%, news and current affairs is up 11%, and general entertainment and lifestyle were both up 11%.
No numbers were provided on Music or Factual.
Share
- Tagged with Secret City, The Kettering Incident, Wentworth
3 Responses
1000 hours of this would be AFL (incl panel shows), probably the same for NRL. NBL is probably half that, same for a-league so let’s say 3000 hours total for live and local sport.
I love how they include news & current affairs in the figures. There’s another 17520 hours for Sky News and Sky News Business. If they want to be ridiculous they will include sky news weather and bounce that out to 26,280.
All that aside though, Foxtel do have a lot of australian content, including stuff like Crimes that shook Australia and Pawn Stars Australia, not to mention all the real-estate (selling houses australia) and “celebrity” reality shows (real housewives of…).
I don’t get what they mean by protections on their competitors – are they referring to Fetch TV there? If anything it’s foxtel that has all the protection by not allowing to on sell it’s sports channels to other pay tv…
I’d like to see the breakdown of that massive figure… how much sport is first run TV?
No doubt Foxtel are commissioning some great Australian content, but 60000 first run hours in every capital city? Lucky the AFL have teams in every capital city…