Changes to local content tipped
A Gillard government is expected to allow local content on digital multichannels to count towards content quotas.
- Published by David Knox
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A Gillard government is expected to allow drama, children’s and documentary content on digital multichannels to count towards content quotas, according to The Australian.
The speculation follows last week’s announcement that TEN will move Neighbours to its new channel next year.
Last week CEO Grant Blackley would not be drawn on whether the channel had new dramas to announce, or was wise to government intentions.
Another concession likely to be granted is broadening the timeslots within which qualifying drama can screen, currently 5pm-11pm.
Meanwhile FremantleMedia CEO Ian Hogg says FMA and TEN have struck a new agreement on Neighbours. Fees have not decreased.
“The contract hasn’t deviated, we’ve just entered into a new agreement,” he says.
“There’s always pressure to revise costs down. I haven’t been in too many meetings where people have said costs are too low. We’re very happy with our trading terms with TEN.”
The alternative for the long-running soap might have been the axe.
“One of the attractions of going to Eleven is Neighbours is a poster child for Eleven,” Hogg says.
UK Channel Five signed a ten year agreement on the soap in 2008, ensuring its continued longevity.
When Neighbours moves to Eleven, TEN will introduce two News programmes at 6pm and 6:30pm.
Blackley says the presenter for the 6pm bulletin will be announced in three weeks time.
“It will have highly credentialled journalists. It will not have weather or sport unless it is a major national event because the 6pm program is about Australian and international events and newsmakers of the day,” he says.
“There is also not a place to get news at 6.30pm at the moment. So you either wait until seven o’clock or, if you have Foxtel, you go to SKY News. To that end we are servicing a mass audience, in that there will be a news service at that time. Secondly, it will be news for you on a state basis. We want to talk about your state or your community. Then what we can do is continue through to 7PM and have discussion about it.”
Presumably Mr. Blackley has never heard of World News Australia on SBS.
“People have criticised TEN for being alternative. But we’ve been that way since 1990. We were criticised for ONE. But ONE is an enduring, profitable channel. Eleven will be the same. It was a defining day (Thursday) to bring some of the parts of the puzzle together.”
Source: The Australian
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- Tagged with Neighbours, Sky News, TEN News, World News Australia
21 Responses
@Vman, with digital channels all offering alternative shows to News, Ten hasn’t been the only channel to offer something different to News between 6pm-7pm for a year now. If you still want to watch Simpsons and Neighbours, the solution is simple, just watch Eleven from next year and those who want to give Ten’s News services a go can watch Ten.
What a joke.
Matthew, how does it make sense? It means more than likely all Australian drama except Underbelly, Home and Away and Packed to the Rafters, maybe Sea Patrol, will be shunted to digital tv, in probably 10 PM slots (or pitted against one another) to make way for cheaper American imports. Then when they get crap ratings, the axe can be brought down upon them, and then the channels can lobby for less Australian drama due to the television landscape, which they created.
I guess the only hope is torrents and people getting sick of crusty old Simpsons, 2 1/2 men, Bewitched and any other god forsaken American import that gets repeated continually to dent the ratings and therefore force the networks to create Australian drama. Though I don’t see that happening.
I wouldn’t worry about this until we know who wins power
Any changes to local content requirements in particular Australian drama and first run childrens drama needs to ensure there is more of it, not less of it – that is the bottom line. The licence fee rebate must be tied to stricter local content rules. Otherwise greedy networks who constantly cry poor, even though they are so profitable they are the envy of the world, can just forget it. Encouraging the networks to take a risk on their digital channels could breath some desperately needed life into narrative comedy and even drama.
Perhaps to preserve quality of Australian content, the local content points should be awarded based on ratings as opposed to actual hours.
That would prevent excessive NZ or low quality shows making up the points in late night timeslots or on digital channels.
They should be introducing new local content laws rather than spreading them out. An alternative would be to broaden the definition of local content on the secondary channels so it wasn’t just drama. It’s ridiculous that Sketch comedy counts as drama but other forms of local comedy don’t count. Drama needs protecting because it’s expensive, but even some requirement for local content in some form on the secondary channels would be a good step.
TEN used to be the alternate channel that catered to the market that didn’t care about news or any other mild programs. They’d survived like that for decades.
Now they’ve sold out. Seemingly news will get them their ratings which will get them their money. Congratulations TEN. Enjoy your blood money.
It makes sense to count Australian drama content on multichannels towards the quota. The goal of the quota is to keep Australian content on TV and putting it on the multichannels or the main channels shouldn’t matter.
It could be said that local content on the multichannels has less value because not everyone has digital yet, but digital television has been around so long now and digital receivers are so cheap now that in my opinion analogue broadcasts are purely a courtesy.
What a horrible decision. Now it will mean less local content in more obscure timeslots so they can feel vindicated in brining the axe sooner. I really expected Abbott to introduce this and am quite shocked it was Gillard’s idea. I knew she was a backstabbing turncoat, but I at least thought labor would want to create jobs in Australia, not destroy them.
Regarding the article, I’d love to know how One can be profitable. With so few viewers and audience share their target demographic must be miniscule.
Horrible idea for the industry as a whole…will just decrease drama output…….Damn you Gillard…I wish I had of voted for Abbott now, least Liberal has some care fort he arts!!
@Jerome
The government can’t just tighten up the rules to exclude NZ content. A number of treaties between Australia and NZ specify that governments must treat products and services from both countries equally. For example, that means that the NZ government tendering for a contract to provide stationery to government departments could not accept an offer from an NZ company because it wanted to support the local economy if an Australian company was offering a product of equal quality at a lesser price. Similarly, local content quotas must treat NZ and Australian content equally.
The current arrangements make sense as Australia and NZ are forming a single market and there are already strong connections between the production industries with many companies and actors working on both sides of the Tasman.
I agree with the move to allow local content on digital channels to count towards quotas, however I also agree that the quota should be risen for these new channels. There should be a tiered system for local content on the multi-channels, and it should phase in over time.
Tier 1 – “New” Local Content. Should start at 10% daily, with 5% being in primetime, moving up to 20%/10% by 2015 and 35%/25% by 2020.
Tier 2 – “Repeat” Local Content. Should start at 15% daily, moving up to 25% by 2020. However, Networks who play more “new” Australian content than what the requirements in Tier 1 are will have the addition contribute to this Tier 2 quota.
i think it would be a disaster for the industry if local content counted on digital channels. there would be no motive for networks to ever put effort into a drama ever. they could just air final year NIDA students projects at 10:00 on friday or just NZ content and ther job is done. unlike airing on main channels shows have to rate well in primetime, whereas on digital it doesn’t mater as much if no one is watching a show considering how much money it would save from not making big drama.
if there is anything that should be changed here it should be made more strict, ie: NZ content doesn’t count and content should be aired 6-10:30. it doesn’t take a genius to see that if a network is airing a New zealand drama at 5pm or 10:30 thy are trying to work ther way around the system to spending as little money as possible.
I don’t see any problem with allowing some of these more specific quotas for first run content to be fulfilled on digital-only channels – as the vast majority of Australians now have digital TV, it makes sense.
They must, however, also introduce general Australian/NZ content quotas on these channels. We’ve gone from having three commercial TV channels with 55% local content to nine commercial channels, three of which still need to have 55% local content and six which show almost no local content. If we were very generous with our calculations and said these new channels were showing 10% local content (which I doubt is the case) that would mean across commercial TV we are now seeing only an average of 25% local content – that is a huge drop.
Obviously, it is not possible to enforce a 55% quota across all channels as that would be prohibitively expensive for networks and probably bankrupt them, but it is clear they could do more in this area. Maybe a 25% quota on new channels could work as the network could easily fulfil it with a little bit of first run content, some repeats, and some programmes made by the NZ networks (quite a few of which are decent, but are not shown in Australia).
@john ABC News 24 does not have any news between 6:05pm and 7pm (AEST), where The Drum is on.
I think the 6pm-7pm news block is a very smart idea (probably to the demise of Ten News at 5). It will definitely get my viewing attention in this time slot next year.
SBS World News at 6.30 is excellent – if you’re not interested in world events, there’s always weekend newsreader Lee Lin Chin’s fabulousness to keep one entertained.
@Craig – given Abbot’s demonstrated lack understanding of technology or its current and potential benefits I wouldn’t be surprised if he mandated that broadcasts be in black and white. A side benefit is that it would free up more spectrum for the coalition’s proposed wireless internet.
ABC News 24 is HD only news and not everyone has access to it as evidenced by the small shares it receives.
SBS is a hardly watched channel the figures for SBS frequently are beaten by digital channels like Go!
There is now commercial Free to Air news at 6.30 and that is the market Ten are trying to tap into.
As for Australian content on digital channels I believe its a good thing to let it count any Aussie drama that a network produces helps the industry gives jobs etc so its only a good thing even if it is only seen by a small portion of Aussie viewers.
That said now the networks have more channels I believe the Aussie content quota should be raised a little but there should be no restriction on having a minimum amount of content on the digitals you can either air all Aussie Drama on the main channel or share it around on the digitals.
It makes sense IMO since it won’t be long before you’ll need digital to watch TV in this country, good to see the rules change with it. I think TEN must have known about the possible changes.
But my question is what if the Coalition gets in, will they do the same changes?
“There is also not a place to get news at 6.30pm at the moment. So you either wait until seven o’clock or, if you have Foxtel, you go to SKY News.”
Ten musn’t be that bright if they are introduced additional news programs based on this premise.
I guess he hasn’t heard of ABC News 24 either, as well as SBS.