SPAA boss on TEN drama: “They can’t have their cake & eat it too.”
Exclusive: SPAA hits out at TEN's strategy for multichannel Drama points. Updated: TEN defends its position.
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EXCLUSIVE: The Screen Producer’s Association of Australia has questioned TEN’s approach to the debate on local content on multichannels, following industry lobby groups asking the government to approve the recommendations of the Convergence Review.
Since early 2011 TEN has played 240 hours of Neighbours on ELEVEN, none of which has attracted Drama sub-quota points. Yet TEN does not support the Convergence Review findings to add 50% sub-quota to multichannels. Instead it is siding with Seven and Nine as part of Free TV Australia’s argument that it is already investing heavily in local production at a time when advertising has declined and there are competing interests.
SPAA President Geoff Brown told TV Tonight, TEN was trying to have it both ways.
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” he said.
“You can’t say it counts as quota on the new digital multichannels and then say we don’t want any more. There’s an inherent contradiction in that.
“TEN have got to realise they’ve got to meet what we would call their public service obligation of having free spectrum.”
A TEN spokesperson told TV Tonight, “TEN’s consistent position has been that we should have the flexibility to program Australian drama, documentaries and children’s programs across our three channels and still count them toward our local content obligations.
“This will allow us to program content in the best way to meet our audience’s needs and give the programming the best chance to succeed.
“The current rules penalise TEN for putting first-run Australian drama on a digital channel.
“TEN is the only commercial free-to-air network to have invested in first-release adult drama for a digital channel.”
If implemented, the Convergence Review recommendations would mean another 40 hours a year of new Australian drama for each network.
Brown says, “We know it’s not going to be Underbelly, because the economics of the multichannels are different from the main channels, at least at this time. But it could be Drama done at $350,000 – $400,000 an hour. It could be situation comedy, sketch comedy, experimental drama.
“It’s a place where the networks can develop programmes which might take and be used on the main channel.
“We just don’t understand the resistance to it.”
SPAA also has a message for TEN if it hopes that running Neighbours on ELEVEN will fulfill any new rules.
“In any new regime we’d be asking that it’s only for new programming, not existing programming. In other words, you don’t slot Neighbours over onto ELEVEN and expect it to pick up any new obligation,” Brown said.
“There might be a ‘grand-fathering’ arrangement that we’d come to, but we’re not going to allow TEN to meet their new obligation, whatever that obligation is, by way of a programme that’s been running for 25 years.
“Sorry. It’s not in the spirit of what this is all about.”
TEN moved Neighbours to ELEVEN in January 2011 when it launched the channel aimed at youth while seeking to re-align TEN to a broader audience. Brown thinks it was a bad move.
“I think it was strong enough to stay on the main channel and I think they’ve marginalised it by putting it on ELEVEN,” he said.
“I think it was a cow of a thing to do to a great programme. I don’t think it did anyone any favours and I don’t think it did TEN any favours in the long run. They replaced it with a terrible News programme and lost their demographic in the process!”
But TEN defends that the move helped drive digital take-up and says critics should be looking at new players in the industry such as IPTV, who aren’t under any of the same obligations or investment.
“Neighbours embodies the reason we have drama quotas: it reflects Australian culture and lifestyle; it has been a training ground for numerous talented people on and off-screen for more than 25 years; it employs around 200 people over the full year; it has a younger audience; and it showcases Australian production skills globally,” the spokesperson said.
TEN also has also comedy project Micro Nation for ELEVEN but is yet to announce an Airdate.
UPDATE:
TEN’s Director of Corporate and Public Communications Neil Shoebridge has since responded to Geoff Brown’s comments:
“Geoff Brown’s comments are extraordinary and uninformed. Is he speaking for every member of SPAA? Has he polled every member of SPAA and then formed a consensus view, or are these simply his personal views? If they are the latter – which we assume they are – how is Geoff qualified to comment on Ten’s strategy and programming decisions? How is he qualified to comment on the quality of programs on Ten or any other network. How does he justify making sweeping statements about Ten’s programming content and audience performance? To our mind, his comments are outside his brief at SPAA and are based on false assumptions.
“In terms of Neighbours, is Geoff suggesting that the most successful local drama series Australia has ever produced is not worthy of drama points? What an insult to the hundred or so industry professionals who work on the show – the cast, the writers, the directors, the crew and the production company – the same proud professionals SPAA is meant to support. Do we infer from this that success is a bad thing, and that longevity and overseas sales are a problem? Ten continues to lead the way with bold and innovative drama programming, and it is enormously proud of everything that Neighbours achieves on a daily basis, both here and with its vast audience overseas. Twenty-seven years of consistent production, employment, and engagement for audiences should be something to shout from the rooftops, not belittle.
“Geoff says we cannot have our cake and eat it too, suggesting our positions are contradictory. There is absolutely no contradiction in Ten’s position: we stand by the existing content obligations, but in order to program drama, documentaries and children’s content to its best advantage we need to be able to put it on the digital channels. To argue that the only way we can put drama or children’s programming on the digital channels is if we do 50% more of it is just nonsensical.
“Everyone needs to realise we are not living in 1988. The free to air television industry’s piece of the cake is much smaller than it was and yet we continue to front up to our content obligations, which are the heaviest globally. It is because of those obligations that the local production sector is flourishing, Screen Australia called it a renaissance a couple of weeks ago.
“People who have no understanding of how the business of content production and distribution has changed should think twice before they enter the debate about content quotas and digital channels.”
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18 Responses
I haven’t seen the Project since they moved it to 6pm but seriously do we really need to be subjected to another hour of more or less the same things that were covered at 5pm.Put an hour of Cartoons or Older Sitcoms between 6 and 7pm and cut Project back to 30 minutes like before.
I quite like the Simpsons,Neighbours,Everybody Loves Raymond system on 11 It’s a good way to start the evenings.I often have seen the Paul and Priya Promotions during ELR and this one takes the cake but they showed it during a commercial break just after on the Sitcom Scene where RAY’s clothes were thrown out of his house.
Snoopy we have been down this road before. You say put on cartoons and sitcoms early evenings, and I say we have multichannels. I think we have exhausted the topic.
Moving Neighbours was a terrible move for Ten. Time to relaunch it back on the main channel.
Great response Channel 10
There is no simple answer to this one. The networks have been “gifted” the extra channels without being exposed to further competition in yes what is a difficult operating environment. And channel ten did show what some might call a coursgeous decision to put neighbors on 11 – yes it is old – but was still rating reasonably ok. It is still an investment in Australian production and as such deserves some recognition with the quota system. Maybe a “meet half way” scenario would be to give a proportion weighting to shows on digital but they should also remove any allowance for new Zealand product.
@NN01 I may be wrong, but I think Neighbours was rating about the same as The Project does now.
As I said, in hindsight, the news experiment was a mistake. But Neighbours was tired and had low ratings. TEN tried to address that and failed.
My point is that without the multichannels, low rating shows, like Neighbours, would probably be axed.
@Squareeyes, the funny thing is, Neighbours was getting more viewers than Ten’s New experiments.. oh and @OzJay, you need to learn a few things about drama my friend.
Neighbours needs to pack up and move back home to Ten!
Geoff Brown has no idea.For a start networks don’t have the money to be making more shows for the other channels.The Primary Channel will always the one they concentrate on.The extra channels are just that and that won’t change in the future when it comes to Australian content
imho, the problem with “Neighbours” has nothing to do with which station it’s on, or even what time it’s on. It’s two real problems:
The lack of research done on subjects they then write inaccurate stories about.
It’s other problem is this: while they might gear it towards a younger audience, they must remember that people of all ages watch this show. I have from the beginning & I’m 50! Now, I don’t want to see teenage angst stories all the time. They have characters of all ages. Let’s mix it up sometimes! They need to write stories that are respectful to the actors, characters & the audience.
If they did that, maybe, just maybe it’s ratings might be more!
(getting off my soapbox now) 😉
Sure, but that’s really another topic. We’re talking about strategies for digital multichannels and the push to put local content quotas on them.
Considering the digital networks are extra revenue sources for the networks, I don’t see why they shouldn’t have Aussie content requirements.
Ten/Ten/Seven/ABC1 should all be 60% between 6am-Midnight
Mate/Two/Go/Gem/ABC2/ABC3/News24/One/Elevenshould be at least 5% a day in primetime – that’s about 1 hour a day each. Raising to 10% – 2 hours a day – in 3 years
Has no one figured out that the SPAA’s argument that just because you increase the number of commercial channels by a factor of 3, people are going to watch twice as much local content is a load of bunkum. Even more if you count what they are demanding on STV (and the local STV content sometimes gets repeated as local content on FTA e.g. Killing Time, 30s).
While there has been an increase in TV watched, a lot of it has been timeshifted, online or on DVDs and there has been a decrease is live viewing. The secondary channels only have a few percent share each and are full of repeats of overseas shows and still aren’t making money. Dreadful low budget local shows is hardly going to improve them.
Hilarious. So Ten has “invested in first-release adult drama for a digital channel”, not sidelined a ratings turkey. Regardless of where it’s scheduled, Neighbours doesn’t attract enough of an audience to deserve any quota points. The sooner it’s relegated to the scrap heap, the better for Australian drama. The time, energy and money can go into producing something more worthwhile.
its quite clear that ten put little thought into moving neighbours to 11 and now want the rules to revolve around it regardless of what is really the best thing thing to do. i think the obvious thing to do is move neighbours back to ten, maybe keep it 6:30 on 11 but as a rerun.
but did we ever get an answer as to what the penalty is for not reaching quota? or if there is one at all? if ten can keep getting away with only making 30 hours of local drama per year, why do they care?
Everybody thinks they know how to run a TV network.
Neighbours ratings were declining on TEN and if it wasn’t for ELEVEN, it would probably have been axed.
Yes, in hindsight, the news experiment was a mistake. But I doubt TEN would have allowed Neighbours to stay where it was with 300,000 – 400,000 viewers.
Sorry, but who the hell do these people think they are? TEN should be congratulated for paying for a drama series that only airs on digital channels, not castigated!
And I don’t know where they get their idea that spectrum is free…
Agreed. Neighbours needs to go back to TEN. And the storylines are getting interesting now…Paul and Priya lol. The 6pm Project is horrible!