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Screentime defends Crownies

Producers Screentime have issued a rare public statement on its 22 episode drama, under the spotlight amid debate over ABC outsourcing.

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With the ABC moving Crownies to 9:30pm next week, there has been a bit of talk in the media about whether it signals a loss of faith in the show, and whether ABC was right to commission a whopping 22 episodes.

Crownies is a drama under the spotlight while there is a Senate inquiry into ABC outsourcing.

As a result of the media attention, Producers Screentime have issued a rare public statement on the matter:

Screentime is extremely proud of its 22 hour production Crownies, created for the ABC with the specific intention of appealing to a younger demographic.

The drama received strong critical support, and Screentime is honoured to be working in collaboration with the ABC, with whom we enjoy an excellent relationship.

Screentime fully understands and supports the new Thursday lineup – as it promises a night of great drama.

It’s fair to say that the show did not launch so well, but word of mouth for those who have stuck with the show has been strong, and I think it’s stories have improved considerably since its debut.

The show is being moved in part as a consequence of its ratings numbers, but principally due to ABC1 needing to schedule The Slap.

Once Nine scheduled Underbelly: Razor (ironically also produced by Screentime) on Sundays, everybody else found it necessary to work around it.

ABC1 couldn’t feasibly slate The Slap on Mondays or Wednesdays. If it slated it on a Tuesday it would compete with Rafters. So that left Thursdays and the outcome of moving Crownies.

I would have liked to have seen The Slap have a shot at Sundays, as I think there is now an audience looking for an alternative to Underbelly. But I concede its hard to argue against its figures of 1.4m when you have a premium new drama that you want to afford a clean start.

40 Responses

  1. Agree with @Mike Retter that Rake is an excellent series and am looking forward to series #2 next year sometime.

    Disagree vehemently with @Mike Retter on Crownies.

    Sure Cownies has faults as do most Aussie dramas made (even at the high end of commercial FTA & PayTV) on budgets a fraction of UK & USA.

    Sure, the initial marketing campaign may not have been as perfect as some would have wished – again, no OS template to work with (e.g. new season US product arrives with campaigns already formulated) so at least it was an original campaign, presumably to a brief from the programming execs.

    But …

    Storylines in the last few weeks particularly have been excellent. Character development is bedding in nicely and there is ample humour to be had amongst the drama. Some new faces and talents discovered too.

    The locations look like modern Australia, the court cases resonate (esp the one just finished about the traumatised witness). This is exactly the sort of drama the ABC should be making since I doubt it would currently be able to afford period drama, for which you can’t begrudge 7 & 9 (& 10 in the past) for attempting.

    Screentime has evolved into an excellent drama production house.

    I think a lot of traditionalists can’t handle the ABC shifting it’s production to independents and moving it’s broadcast focus and general ‘vibe’ to a younger demographic to stay relevant to the wider Australian community as their core audience of Baby Boomers retire and the generation before them grow older and fade away.

    The track record of traditionalists, elitists, rusted on under-performing staff/unions and Friends Of The ABC to date shows that they will always find fault in most, if not all, of the new initiatives the ABC attempts, including it’s drama slate.

  4. Meanwhile, it remains viewable any time on iView. I’ve eagerly watched every episode, but couldn’t tell you when it airs. If only the commercial channels would offer (legal) downloads of their programming.

  5. Crownies reveals how little ABC management knows about its own audience. It took a sledge hammer approach to trying to find a young audience and failed and in the meantime alienated the older, traditional ABC audience. The production values are good but the scripts are poor. I feel sorry for those actors sprouting latinisms and dealing with the clumsy exposition. It was given the softest night in prime time to succeed and failed to attract a sufficient audience even for the ABC. It is just not a good enough idea to sustain a long running series. A telemovie pilot would probably have revealed this with far less expense and pain.

  6. Its OK.I gave it a good go and really wanted it to be a show to watch…
    The whole Law/ Courtroom scenario is a major turn off though..
    Speaking as a lover of good quality TV Drama i think audiences are over court room and hospital drama…its been done a million times to death..
    its worth looking into winning Adult Dramas like Love My Way, Secret Life of Us, Offspring, Cold Feet, This Life and really seeing why they work..we don’t want to solve crimes we want to be entertained and give a crap about the stories of people we can relate to in some way…the audience rarely went into the court room on This Life but the show was about young lawyers and is something that Crownies have promoted to be inspired by…Crownies is not the best but not the worst of Aussie drama in the past 5 yrs..

  7. Crownies is absolute crap TV. I think it begun with a terrible script (writers take note) that was full of cliches and treated the audience like idiots. If you compare it to a similarly themed show on the ABC, Rake, Crwonies is quite inferior.

    What does this come down to other than some bad casting and direction? The source material. Rake was based on a good book. Crownies is rubbish written for TV with all the cliches and trappings that that comes with. The ABC should fund things based on a good idea, a good story and books often offer tried and tested stories that are complex without dumbing down or one dimensional characters.

    I bet my house on the fact that The Slap will be ten times better because its based on quality source material, a book by Christos Tsiolkas, and that is the fundamental thing you must get right first. It is much harder to be given a cliched made for TV script and turn it into something high quality.

    Audiences are now familiar with genuine quality like Rake and material from HBo and they want more than what Crownies offers.

    It was a mistake to outsource this program to people that made Underbelly. Its like trying to take an ABC show and make it work on commercial TV, but in reverse (they always die after one season). What happens is they have to compromise. The problem with Crownies being Crap is that it isnt crap enough (Underbelly is crap, trashy and thats why I guess it works). If it was a more trashier romp, it would work better, but it has pretences of being quality with shades of its direction and PC storylines. Its a mess, a failure and very unfortunate that quality programs got cancelled this year while this thing has so many expensive hours to go. The ABC should fund some more adaptions of good books if they want to spend the big money that drama requires..

    Crownies is complete crap.

  8. Crownies is a good show but has suffered from hiring on looks rather than acting ability with some of the younger cast but good storylines make that forgivable. I think it’s probably the best Aussie drama on at the moment and I hope I change my mind when The Slap comes on next week.

    It’s a shame it’s being moved to later and The Slap is the only thing I can think of that would make me happy with that.

  9. I have enjoyed Crownies and am looking forward to The Slap too. I am also glad that Crownies isn’t moving to 9:30 till after The Footy Show (AFL) on Nine (which I usually watch) has finished for the year which means I can watch both direct.

  10. Crownies is a fantastic show that suffered at the hands of a really stupid ABC marketing campaign. WTF was up with those dumb posters and TV ads? It sold the show as something it wasn’t. It took a while to find its feet but the show is on fire right now – the last 3 or 4 weeks have been great and I hope the ABC gives it a second series. Great characters and great dilemmas and the best Aussie drama for years.

  11. I think a series like Crownies benefits well from having more episodes … it allows for longer and more complex dramatic arcs and better use of the ensemble cast which in turn has resulted in some meaty, intelligent drama that doesn’t throw it all in your lap. I appreciate having to think a little while I’m watching drama, where not everything is blatantly obvious and telegraphed along the way. Having said that, I too think that occasionally some of the saucy scenes don’t sit as well as they could, but God knows that’s hard to pull off well, no pun intended.

    I’d love to see it commissioned for a second series and develop even more hard hitting cases, as well as developing further the main characters.

  14. Crownies is an excellent show.
    What a pity the media are using selective information in a political debate. Really, think about how shows are watched now. They are cherry picking a small slice of the data to be inflammatory.

  16. I’m sorry, but I disagree. I enjoy well-written drama with believable characters, at least one or two of whom I can identify with, but this isn’t it. I have given it three goes including the woeful first ep.

    Most recently I gave it a good chance to redeem itself a couple of weeks back as there wasn’t really anything else on. I turned the TV off after about 20 minutes. It’s not horrible but it was far from good. Some of the acting seemed like what you would expect from the local ham theatre.

    Also, I enjoy seeing people getting it on as much as anyone but the sex scenes simply jar with the rest of the program. It’s as if someone decided to throw them in at the last moment to try to be hip or to appeal to the Underbelly crowd. Ugh.

    It’s not just me that this has failed to connect with. Even on a Thursday night, 500-500k is hardly a number to get the champagne corks popping. And who thought that it would be a good idea to order 22 eps? As Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes Minister would say – “That was a very brave decision”.

    Have a look at The Secret Life of Us for how to make good quality drama that “appeals to a younger demographic”.

  18. Love Crownies! One of the best Ever produced australian drama series. I’ve read the Slap & can’t wait for hopefully the best 2 hours or ABC TV in a long time – The Slap & Crownies back to back!

  19. Crownies – excellent, Defenders – Ok, Suits – Good what do all thse shows have in common – law, It seems like the networks treat people who like quality drama with a bit of contempt to put it on latish of a night. Whilst screening something about farmers wanting wives with two and a half junior masterchefs mixed in early of an evening, to cater for the masses who willingly watch such shows.

  20. I too think Crownies is an outstanding drama series and it’s currently the only reason I watch the ABC. I also think that this show is the best show on TV right now and I will stick with it no matter what time it is on. It’s a shame that people are so quick to be negative about Australian drama series when the rest of the networks air trash like World’s strictest parents’ and ‘Two and half men’. I don’t understand why we are so quick to watch overseas garbage and be so judgemental about Australian shows. I love Crownies, I’ll stay up until midnight to watch it if need be. 22 episodes of the best show on TV this year, I’ll take that.

  23. I didn’t realize this was 22 eps, I though the final would be coming up soon (to be replace but The Slap) but we’re only about half way through the season.

    Still a good show but takes some getting used to and I’m sure a good night of TV with The Slap.

  24. I dont quite understand people’s contempt for this show and for the ABC for ordering 22 episodes, i am pretty sure people would be complaining if their were not enough episodes, see you just cant win the fickle public now can you, i am pretty sure australia would love trash like Big Brother back, quite sad.

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