Aussie (TV) Content in a streaming era?

G’day,

So we are around 12 months into Netflix… and I can pretty safely say that “free to air” tv has only been viewed in this household 2-3 times at most after the first month or so as we adjusted to this new tech, and slowly ceased bothering to tune in to the old FreeView favourites.

One thing however that I am starting to lament is Aussie content.

Netflix has a handful of Aussie product on offer, but it’s all old. Some of it really old! My wife watched Murial’s Wedding the other day, and I know they have Around the Twist… And - I guess there may be more, but not lots of it. (oh - buckets of Wiggles and Hi5)

Being that Aust regulations apply to broadcast telly, and have not kept up with downloaded content, Netflix are under no obligation to either create or air local content.

So - what are other Aussies doing about this?

Do you still tune in to catch Neighbours, or local news broadcasts? Do the other operatives (Stan, and…?) offer a greater variety of Aussie voices?

Is this something that you even give a damn about? Could local content be damned cos now you can choose what and when you want to watch?

Cheers

cosmic

Stan and Netflix both contribute to local content. That said this is the argument commercial FTA is making, why should they have to when streaming TV don’t. I think everyone should contribute to local content, the biggest problem they face is finding an audience. It needs to be great to grab the audiences attention from the US and UK content. One of the problems being that audience loyalty isn’t there. If it’s not nailed by ep 1 or 2 no one sticks around. Australian content normally needs a bit longer to find its feet. Interestingly seven’s catch up service now has all of Blue Heelers streaming and Nine streaming service has all of Water Rats.

I used to record the news every night and eventually would just delete it from the PVR, now the I don’t even have the PVR plugged in. Technically the Telstra TV does FTA if I ever want to watch something live. These days FTA is reserved for the Grand Final, Bathurst and usually the fireworks on NYE. About the only time I see FTA is when I visit the in-laws who tend to have the morning shows on. It’s almost an experience to see TV ads once every six months or so :stuck_out_tongue:

We used to watch some Aussie drama back in the day, All Saints was on the list but I don’t know if there was anything else. I have zero interest in reality TV and other than that I don’t even know what is available in the Aussie content space. Utopia was one I was keeping up on, but that’s been a year since the last episode…

You and me both. But unfortunately we as the consumers need to take a lot of the blame for this.

Suffering in silence.

Yes strongly. However as I’ve mentioned above mostly suffering in silence though.

In my opinion the problem is mostly got to do with the quality of the content when they’re not willing to make anything other than the crap that’s the cheapest and easiest to bank the most hours with.

What’s really worth fighting for.

To be completely honest these regulations are actually hindering the Australian content market in their current form at least in my opinion.

And all that is currently doing is forcing them to make one or two real shows the year with the rest of it been that cheap nasty reality crap or lifestyle news or going to breaking news content more often.

So they can get their Australian hourly quota up and just import the high quality content from the US as it is cheaper than having it made for you or making it yourself.

My biggest problem these days is the fact that we are not getting as much UK content and most of its now coming from the US but I believe the UK having a similar problem where US content is cannibalising some of their own content just not to the extent that it’s happening here.

Not really it’s mostly back catalogue stuff. However Stan is making a handful of Australian content.

Also want to say Netflix while doesn’t have any Australian content in development (As far as I’m aware) at the moment they are in talks quite often.

A friend of mine that works for a company that makes Australian content says that had Netflix come sniffing a few times. The ABC is making a couple of shows that are iview only I believe.

Unfortunately there’s only one show that I’ve watched recently from Australia that wasn’t produced by the ABC.

There argument is just stupidity. One if they don’t want to be in the physical broadcast industry any more go digital then you can show whatever the hell you want.

Give that transmission space and frequency back I can find a better use for it then they do.

There is nothing stopping them putting more hours of content available on their online digital service that they buy elsewhere.

They just can’t work out how to take the model of advertise supported media into the digital age and no one is going to pay for all that reality TV crap.

You ever use one of their catch up services you know they can’t figure out the the ad situation yet and you often see the same add multiple times sometimes even in a row repeatedly throughout a TV show.

Two at the end of the day they’re not really making that much quality entertainment anyway that’s Australian based.

Three I feel the networks whinging is more got to do with the fact that prices for overseas content licensing deals are getting more expensive and they’ve got to compete other providers that have a more robust model for monetisation than they do.

These are also the same networks the got pissed off that a block of TV shows that SBS ended up with that none of the commercial networks wanted last TV season became winners should be taken away from SBS because government funding content like that on a government funded network shouldn’t be happening.

Typical Australian business our business model is broken but we don’t want to fix it so the government should step in and protect us.

Gerry Harvey and the Australian TV networks can go f*** themselves as far as I’m concerned good riddance to bad overpriced terrible rubbish.

It’s good to see that we’re starting to see more and more of this.

However I also believe there is a significant problem with the way licensing is been done for back catalogues of Australian content because it obviously isn’t feasible for the providers to even pay for some of that great content that we have in our back catalogues but you don’t even see much of it on commercial television any more let alone available digitally on other services for purchasing let alone streaming.

It makes me wonder if the networks of got the stuff tied up in licensing situations where production companies can’t even release it to other services.

US Netflix has more Aussie content than Aus.

That’s because of international licensing. As I mentioned above I am wondering if that’s because a lot of the licensing is tied up permanently here in Australia.

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Aside from live sport and news, zero interest in local content apart from the occasional offering from ABC or SBS, which I can stream later anyhow.

Might occasionally record a movie on FTA but only watch once I’ve edited out the ads.

Once advertisers realise we don’t actually see any if their ads any longer, FTA will die overnight.

3 Years Later…

We are finally, honestly going to add a new service to our streaming lineup - which is still just Netflix.

About to go with Disney (for the kids, but also - Star Wars…), but am sitting in front of a tv with it, and am not super impressed… I’m not super into Marvel - too CGI… I think the kids will win out though.

So, Disney Plus it is.

Paid $120 for the year, rather than going monthly in order to save 15%.

Kids, wife and I enjoying the new content.

Going back to the original intent of this thread - Can’t say I’m seeing anything Aussie… though with the core of the service being Disney and Lucasfilm - I guess that’s to be expected…

Much as we don’t like Jeff Bezos, Prime Video has scooped up a lot of Australian content. Mostly old stuff but it was excellent in its day. And from time to time, newer stuff, too. (e.g., The Dry… Slow TV The Ghan… Burning - about the 2019/20 bushfires)

I wish there was more local content available, that said, I probably don’t go out of my way looking for it. I don’t mean garbage like Neighbours, Home & Away, Packed to the Rafters, etc. I do tend to seek out quality Australian films at film festivals and independent cinemas though.

I recently cancelled Stan because I was not getting value from it. I have never subscribed to Disney or Paramount. I don’t see myself cancelling Netflix at any time, and I will probably continue with Prime for another year, although I don’t use it as much as I should.

As a sports fan, the spread of sport across streaming services is annoying. I used to have Foxtel primarily for sport, then I cancelled it and subscribed to Kayo Sport. As an Optus NBN customer, I get Optus Sport for free which is good because I’ve been a big Liverpool supporter since I was a kid. But now there’s Stan Sport as well as some sport on Paramount Plus. It’s aggravating.

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