A lack of blockbusters led to investment in drama production in Australia dropping by almost a third in the last financial year.
The Screen Australia Drama Report, released today, showed a total of $1.7 billion was spent on drama production in Australia in 2023-24.
Screen Australia CEO Deirdre Brennan this was a 29 percent decline, compared to last year, primarily due to a reduction in high-budget production activity across international TV and Australian theatrical features.
Ms Brennan said global economic conditions continued to impact screen production, with disruption across distribution platforms, business models and audience shifts influencing the market.
She said the past year also saw US industrial action and uncertainty around changes to the Location Offset incentive, which may have led to international projects being impacted.
“Expenditure of $1.7 billion on 169 Australian and international drama productions represents a solid result after a three-year peak driven by Australia’s status as a COVID-safe filming destination, streaming growth and a number of high-budget theatrical features.”
Ms Brennan said this year’s results confirmed key trends in domestic activity with a contraction of free-to-air commercial TV drama and the increasing role of Subscription video on demand (SVOD) commissioning.
She said children’s content continued to face significant pressure and remained reliant on government support.
“We’re working to broaden the opportunities for development of Australian kids IP (and) we will also explore the needs of feature filmmakers working in the $1-5 million budget range.”
2023/24 Drama Report Key Findings
- $1.7 billion spent on 169 productions, 55 percent coming from Australian titles, primarily general TV/VOD drama.
- $929 million was spent on Australian titles, down 18 percent on last year, due to fewer high-budget Australian theatrical features, such as Mortal Kombat in 2022/23, Furiosa in 2021/22 and Elvis in 2020/21.
- 36 Australian theatrical features commenced production, with a total spend of $214 million. While the number of titles increased by two, there was a 42 percent decrease in spend from the previous year. Features in the $1-5 million budget range dominated.
- $657 million was spent on 55 Australian general TV/VOD drama titles, consistent with the previous year.
- Children’s content continues to be under significant pressure, with eight titles entering production, down from 12 last year. Expenditure in this category dropped 29 percent, with the number of hours of children’s content decreasing by 42 percent.
- Australian independent and global streaming platforms contributed the largest share of investment (65 percent) in TV/VOD drama across 26 titles. Its investment value and number of titles both increased this year.
- The proportion of spend for states and territories was 47 percent in New South Wales, 19 percent in Victoria, 18 percent in Queensland, five percent in South Australia, five percent in Western Australia and six percent in the combined states and territories – Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory and Tasmania.
- $768 million of total expenditure in Australia came from 70 international productions, a 39 percent decrease from last year. This was driven by less international TV/VOD production.
