Australia has backed away from plans to introduce local quotas on streaming platforms – again
- Written by Alexa Scarlata, Research Fellow, Media & Communication, RMIT University
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.
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.
Authors: Alexa Scarlata, Research Fellow, Media & Communication, RMIT University
