Författare: Alexa Scarlata Research Fellow Media Communication RMIT Univ

The federal government has quietly shelved plans to introduce local requirements for Australian screen content on streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+.

In October, Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke flagged quotas were being delayed until after the United States election, amid concerns new rules might be seen as a violation of Australia’s 2004 free trade agreement.

This is something the government should have foreseen and addressed. The Australian screen industry petitioned the government back in 2017 to commit to a “cultural carve out” when negotiating free trade agreements to support the maintenance of a unique Australian culture.

Last week, Burke confirmed these local content requirements have been postponed indefinitely.

A decade of can-kicking

In Australia, commercial broadcasters and pay-TV platforms have been required to meet local content quotas as part of their licensing arrangements for decades.

Broadcasters have to show at least 55% Australian content between 6am and midnight on their primary channel, and have to meet certain genre quotas. Foxtel’s drama channels must spend at least 10% of their program expenditure on Australian drama programs.

While Colin From Accounts streams on Binge, it is produced by Easy Tiger Productions and CBS Studios for Foxtel.
BINGE

Streaming platforms have never faced the same obligations.

Following a determination made by then-Communications Minister Richard Alston in 2000, streaming services continue to be defined by government as “online services”.

As such, they operate outside of official broadcast regulation. They have no formal obligation to invest in Australian content production.

The production and broadcast sectors have long expressed concerns about the low amounts of local content on streaming services and their lack of commissioning requirements.

Policymakers have held eight official inquiries into the best approach for regulation in Australia since 2017.

These have consistently recommended subscription video on demand companies invest part of their revenue earned in Australia in new Australian content.

In 2022, the Morrison government proposed a two-tier system where large streamers would report annually about their spending on and provision of Australian content. If they were investing less than 5% of their revenue, a formal investment requirement would be triggered.

Screen Producers Australia dubbed this scheme “weak” and has since lobbied streamers be required to spend a minimum of 20% of their local revenues on Australian content.

Anthony Albanese (left) and Tony Burke (centre) at the launch of the governments new cultural policy, January 30 2023.
AAP Image/James Ross

With the matter still undecided, in the final week of their election campaign the Labor government made a pledge to develop an arts agenda that would, among other promises, promote Australian creators on streaming platforms.

In January 2023, the government’s new National Cultural Policy included a formal commitment to ensuring continued access to local stories and content by introducing requirements for Australian screen content on streaming platforms.

This was to commence no later than July 1 2024. This is the plan which has now been shelved.

Supporting the local sector

At the same time as past governments ran multiple redundant inquiries into how to regulate streaming services, they have also scaled down licence fees and local content obligations for commercial broadcasters since 2016.

This has had devastating results for the production of Australian drama and kids TV. Locally-made Australian children’s television content decreased by more than 84% between 2019 and 2022.

Subscription video-on-demand services have maintained they don’t need to be regulated because they are committed to producing content in Australia.

Subscription services have maintained they have a commitment to making Australian content, like Heartbreak High.
Courtesy of Netflix

The Australian operator Stan has steadily built a suite of original productions since it launched in 2015, but it took US-based services like Netflix and Prime Video more than two years from launch to start commissioning new content.

Their commitment to the local sector has largely manifested in off-shore productions set in the US, like Netflix’s Clickbait; adaptations of books and TV classics, like Prime’s Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and Netflix’s Heartbreak High; and distributing existing Australian content to international subscribers.

More recently we have seen big-budget original concepts set in Australia, like Territory from Netflix and Last Days of the Space Age from Disney+.

These offerings have tended to be flashy, sporadic, and last only one season.

What does this mean for Australian producers and audiences?

With the introduction of local content requirements still up in the air, independent producers remain in a precarious and unsustainable position.

Australian audiences also have no guarantee the streaming services they pay to subscribe to will spend some of that money commissioning and distributing locally made content.

The government could be coming up with other solutions like better resourcing the public service broadcasters, embedding cultural specificity requirements into funding models, and addressing the very worrying impact of flexible content quotas for broadcasters.

But, after a decade of debate, an informed election promise was made. Locking down some kind of local content requirement for streaming services is within arm’s reach and long overdue. Läs mer…

As I write this, people around the country will be recovering from last night’s Halloween shenanigans, perhaps even experiencing a candy-induced comedown.

Luckily, this month’s streaming picks include a serial killer flick that’ll help keep the spooky season around a bit longer. There’s also Chimp Crazy, an audacious docuseries that’s horrific in its own way – as well as some slick new TV shows set against the idyllic scenery of the outback.

Whether you’re after funny, frightening or frivolous, there’s plenty to kick your feet up to.

Territory

Netflix

Territory takes place in the Northern Territory, on the “world’s largest cattle station”. The once-great dynasty of its owners, the Lawson family, is thrown into doubt when their heir apparent dies. The Top End’s most powerful players – billionaire miners, rival cattle barons, desert gangsters and Indigenous elders – immediately start circling.

Filmed in stunning remote locations, the show looks like the most ambitious and sophisticated Tourism Australia ad you’ve ever seen. The wildlife! The panoramic drone shots! The hat budget! The rest of the world could go from thinking we ride kangaroos to work, to assuming we’ve all got our own helicopters. While the male characters are brilliant sources of humour and violence, it’s the ladies in Territory that bring the heart.

Territory does a great job of establishing a simmering tension between the traditional owners of the land and the families and businesses that have taken possession of it – but these plotlines move at a frustratingly slow pace. Perhaps this is to cater to a global audience, which will likely lack the context that local viewers have. And maybe, for Australian viewers, the enduring subordination and struggle of the original landowners is the intended takeaway.

Territory is an ambitious and attractive series. It was wonderful to see so many resources poured into a new concept, filmed and set in a part of Australia that rarely sees the kind of spotlight it deserves.

– Alexa Scarlata

Read more:
Netflix’s Territory is a Succession-like drama packed with family rivalry and betrayal, set in Australia’s outback

Woman of the Hour

Netflix

Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, offers a glimpse into the horrific crimes of serial killer Rodney Alcala. Branded with the epithet “the Dating Game Killer” after his appearance on a popular 1970s dating game show, Alcala is thought to have been responsible for the rape and murder of up to 130 men, women and children.

Woman of the Hour is especially interested in the way women of the 1970s were pinned under a critical social gaze which expects them to be nurturing and compliant – resulting in their extreme psychological and physical vulnerability.

Alcala’s camera and the cameras of The Dating Game both frame and blind the women subjected to their gaze, highlighting social and gendered conventions and restrictions.

Kendrick is a compelling presence as a woman initially proud of and confident in her intelligence, before realising even she can be caught in Alcala’s web. Daniel Zovatto, as Alcala, is dangerously captivating in the predatory display of his simultaneous charisma and sadism.

Woman of the Hour departs from Kendrick’s past, lighter work; I look forward to seeing what she turns her hand to next.

– Jessica Gildersleeve

Rivals

Disney+

A “bonkbuster” needs three key things. It should be 1) full of sex (the bonking), 2) extremely popular (the -buster) and 3) wildly over-the-top (in other words, bonkers). Rivals, the new Disney+ adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s 1988 novel of the same name, has 1 and 3 in spades. And if earlyreception is anything to go by, it’s well on its way to 2.

The show revels in the excesses and spectacle of its 1980s setting. It begins with Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) having sex with a journalist in the bathroom of a Concorde – a scene which, ahem, climaxes when the plane breaks the sound barrier. The show continues much in the same vein for its eight episodes.

On the surface, the plot seems relatively dry. The titular rivals are two production companies competing for a local television franchise. Corinium is headed by villainous Tony Baddingham (David Tennant), while Venturer is run by Rupert and Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner). Caught between them is the ruthlessly ambitious producer Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams), who both sides are desperate to get in bed with (figuratively and literally).

However, the plot is surrounded by so much frothy fun, melodrama and naked tennis that there’s plenty of other things to become invested in. Rivals doesn’t take itself too seriously, yet it also has a lot of heart. Keep an eye out for the romance between Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer) and Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson), which is a real highlight.

– Jodi McAlister

Thou Shalt Not Steal

Stan

Thou Shalt Not Steal follows Aboriginal teen Robyn (the immensely talented Sherry-Lee Watson). She escapes juvenile detention and embarks on a defiant road trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide to uncover a long-held family secret.

Each episode begins with a tongue-in-cheek lesson from Robyn’s past. These range from the eponymous “thou shalt not steal” to “thou shalt never go to Coober Pedy”.

This deadpan humour cleverly introduces significant issues. There are the inordinate rates of incarceration of Indigenous youth, alcoholism, assault, toxic masculinity, bullying and weaponised religion, among others.

Over the first six of its eight short episodes, Thou Shalt Not Steal maintains a balance between acerbic comedy and perilous road trip. Its final episodes revel in a series of over-the-top scenarios that nevertheless tie up narrative loose ends in an enjoyable way. Indeed the shift to outright absurdity reveals the show’s gentler message: about finding a chosen family.

It is a slick, well-made series with terrific attention to detail. The gorgeous landscapes contrast with the dank, grimy spaces occupied by the antagonists and the soundtrack is its own treasure trove. Thou Shalt Not Steal is most definitely a fun ride.

– Kelly McWilliam

Read more:
Thou Shalt Not Steal: new Stan series is a perversely funny road trip through Central Australia

Fisk season 3

ABC iView

Nothing is certain but death, taxes and Fisk being hilarious – especially in relation to the first two. In season three, things are changing at small wills and probate firm Gruber & Fisk. The signature brown suit remains, but as a freshly named partner our “spiky little lawyer friend” Helen Tudor-Fisk (Kitty Flanagan) must tackle more responsibility, pressure and general idiocy than ever before.

In the office, Roz (Julia Zemiro) is giving her mediation business a red-hot go – to varying degrees of success – and scribbling ideas for an imminent hit album. Ray (Marty Sheargold) is loudly enamoured with his fashion psychologist “lady-love” Melissa (Justine Clarke), to everyone’s vexation. And probate clerk George (Aaron Chen) is in the crossfire from his usual post at the front desk while his role as The Webmaster faces competition.

The quiet hysteria of office life ramps up to a frenzy when threats are made and co-working space politics arise. There are also guffaws a-plenty to be found in Fisk’s handling of useless nepo hires, her ageing ex-judge father’s forthcoming memoir, suspicious will amendments scrawled in biro, and a scheming “grammer” (granny scammer).

Fisk’s star-studded third season doesn’t disappoint. It offers a smorgasbord of Australian comedic talent including Sam Campbell, Claudia Karvan, Tom Ballard and Rhys Nicholson, to name a few. With previous seasons given the approving title of “accurate” by law experts, I might find you in contempt if you don’t give it a watch.

– Marina Deller

Chimp Crazy

BINGE

Chimpanzees terrify me. They’re our closest genetic species; one minute they’re sweet – the next, angry and violent. Similarly, Chimp Crazy gave me the creeps. In this docuseries, hit Tiger King director Eric Goode focuses on another animal obsessive, Tonia Haddix.

Haddix entangles with great apes when she volunteers with a for-profit facility run by Connie Casey. This is where Haddix forms an attachment with a “humanzee” Tonka, who grew up performing in Hollywood films before disappearing from view.

However, Goode can’t get close to Haddix and Tonka: all bridges to the big animal community have been reduced to ashes thanks to how things went down with Joe Exotic. So Goode employs former circus clown Dwayne Cunningham as a proxy director.

While the issue of deforestation doesn’t rate a mention, Chimp Crazy comments subtly on the stratification of society in North America and on a lack of love. All the action occurs in the deep south, with “white trash” under the microscope.

Goode explores an alternative angle with representatives from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), who hound Haddix tooth and manicured nail. Their take is that chimps don’t need us and deserve “humane” conditions.

Ultimately, the docuseries erects another streaming era icon: Haddix is plastic, unapologetic, flawed and reminiscent of a mother who’s about to be separated from her offspring. It just so happens her kid is a 32-year-old chimpanzee.

– Phoebe Hart

The Office

Prime

The new Australian remake of The Office mirrors closely the American version: a romance storyline, tensions between office and warehouse, an old-school boss who loves, craves and needs camaraderie, and a staff for whom work life comes second to what they’d rather be doing.

Hannah Howard (Felicity Ward) is the devoted office manager who loves her job too much and runs an underperforming, dysfunctional workplace of uninterested staff. Like David Brent and Michael Scott before her, Hannah is optimistic, naive, relentless and terrible at staff management. She forces pyjama days and bus trips on her employees, who are clearly unwilling yet never actively rebel. There is plenty of comedy in the awkwardness and small moments.

The first Australian season of The Office might not be anything new, but I kept watching. It felt safe, even comforting. Perhaps in a similar way going to someone else’s family for Christmas lunch can feel familiar: recognisable foods, decorations, known characters – but with the frisson that maybe something different will happen this time.

This remake knows what it is. It’s been made to satisfy an audience wanting to be in a world that reflects their own experiences, but takes it just that bit too far. It’s not setting out to break moulds, but to bring the mould up to date and give it an Australian voice for the world to hear.

– Philippa Burne

Read more:
A decade after the US version ended, Australia remakes The Office. It’s not new, but it’s funny Läs mer…