★★★★★ 0/5

Subscription TV spent $18.4m on Australian drama in 2022 / 23

High Country, Love Me and Strife amongst drama titles invested by Foxtel over the past 12 months.

4
Leave a comment

More than $18 million was spent by subscription TV licensees and channel providers on new Australian drama programs in the 2022–23 financial year, according to new data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The subscription television’s New Eligible Drama Expenditure compliance results also showed all seven subscription TV licensees and channel providers met the minimum requirements of the scheme.

It does not include Streaming platforms.

A total of $18.42 million spent on new Australian drama programs, just below the 2021–22 financial year, when $18.72 million was spent.

Spending on eligible shows included:

Dramas – High Country, Love Me (Series 2) and Strife
Feature films – Elvis and Wyrmwood: Apocalypse
Children’s drama – Bluey (Series 3).

Under the NEDE rules, subscription TV licensees that broadcast drama channels are required to invest 10 per cent of their total expenditure in new Australian drama programs. This requirement also applies to channel providers, being companies that provide drama channels to subscription TV licensees in Australia.

The rules provide for the expenditure obligation to be incurred in one year and acquitted in either the same financial year or the following year. This means that any shortfalls and surpluses from the previous year can be carried across the following financial year.

In each financial year, licensees and channel providers must acquit their previous financial year’s shortfall for each drama channel, in order to be compliant with the rules.

For the 2022–23 financial year, subscription TV licensees and channel providers reported amounts totalling $17 million in shortfalls to be made up in 2023–24.

Drama channels and providers: July 2022 to June 2023

Drama channels: BBC First, BBC UKTV, Boomerang, Box Sets, Cartoon Network, CBeebies, Comedy Central, Fox Classics, Fox Comedy, Fox Crime, Fox Funny (broadcast ceased 1 March 2023), Fox One, Fox SciFi, Fox Showcase, Fox Sleuth, Fox 8, Nickelodeon, Universal TV, DreamWorks, PBS Kids and the Foxtel Movies** service (comprising the channels Ultra, Premiere, Hits, Family, Kids, Action, Comedy, Thriller, Romance, Drama, Greats, and Lifetime Movie Network).

**Foxtel Movies comprise 12 movie channels but Foxtel reports this as a single drama service.

Subscription TV licensees: Foxtel, Telstra, and Fetch TV.

Channel providers: BBC Studios Australia, Foxtel Management, NBC Universal International Networks Australia, and VIMN Australia.

4 Responses

  2. So the BBC puts it’s 10% of it’s BBC First revenue into Bluey though BBC Worldwide, a show it funds anyway and doesn’t show Bluey here. And as Taxpayers fund more than half of Bluey through the ABC and Lingo’s production and tax breaks, the BBC is getting a great deal for the worldwide broadcast, streaming, DVD and merchandising rights to Bluey which generate hundreds of millions for them. And the entire Cable investment is equal to the budget for less than 1 episode of the Mandalorian.

  3. Is there any chance Love Me will return David? I feel like there was more to tell of the story. Plus it was such a great show and loved the character arcs of the main leads across both seasons.

Leave a Reply