By Miranda Ward. AFR 29 March 2022

Australian screen production companies warn the local industry could be “wiped out” within two years if streaming giants such as Netflix and Disney+ are not forced by regulators to incorporate local content.

Tracey Vieira, the chief content officer of Hoodlum Entertainment, said Australia’s production industry was made up of small businesses desperate for a resolution about how streaming services would be regulated.

“I work for Hoodlum Entertainment which was founded 25 years ago,” she said. “They struggled at times and have fought for every part of that company and that could be wiped out within two years.”

In February, the federal government proposed a two-tier scheme to encourage streamers to invest in Australian content.

The proposal would give the federal communications minister the power to designate large services such as Netflix as “tier one services”. Tier one services would be required to report annually to the Australian Communications and Media Authority about their spending on, and provision of, Australian content, as well as the steps they are taking to make local content prominent and discoverable on their services.

If a tier one service was investing less than 5 per cent of its gross Australian revenue in new Australian commissions in any given year, the minister could designate the service as tier two, triggering a formal investment requirement backed by an enforcement regime.

Australian Directors Guild chief executive Alaric McAusland said streaming services brought huge opportunities, noting that AppleTV+ had just become the first streaming service to win best picture at the Academy Awards with CODA.

But the ongoing regulatory void in Australia was “disastrous”, he said.

“There’s huge opportunities but we’ve got to get the settings right,” Mr McAusland said.

“De-regulating the free-to-airs on the premise that audiences were migrating to streamers without then imparting regulation on them has left a huge gap.”

Mr McAusland pointed to the declining figures of local children’s content and drama following changes to the regulations that ensured free-to-air providers delivered a certain amount of content in these categories.

“There still remains no obligation by any broadcaster here to make, produce and show kids content,” he said.

“It’s going to take us a long time to recover.”

He argued the lack of regulation would see production companies fold.

“People are going to walk away from their businesses, it’s a disaster,” he said.

Ms Vieira argued the regulation needed to focus on commissions because acquisitions of content that had already been made “don’t pay for us to make that content”.

“We still need to find the money to make our content, I have real concern on behalf of the producers on the viability of our industry,” she said.

Ms Vieira said the production industry needed clear terms of trade and market oversight as “producers have very little power when we’re dealing with streamers”.

South Australian Film Corporation chief executive Kate Croser said any regulation of the industry needed to benefit the Australian independent production sector and deliver Australian stories to Australian screens.

“That’s because Australian independent producers are the bedrock of our industry,” she said.