Australian Entertainment Industries
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This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Flew, Terry& Collis, Christy (2020) Australian entertainment industries. In Sigismondi, P (Ed.) World entertainment media: Global, regional and local perspectives. Routledge, United States of America, pp. 193-200. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/197373/ c Taylor & Francis This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. https:// www.routledge.com/ World-Entertainment-Media-Global-Regional-and-Local-Perspectives-1st/ Sigismondi/ p/ book/ 9781138094024 Terry Flew and Christy Collis Australia CHAPTER 21 AUSTRALIA Australian Entertainment Industries Authors – Terry Flew and Christy Collis ORCID ID: Terry Flew 0000-0003-4485-9338 ORCID ID: Christy Collis 0000-0003-2951-8412 Abstract Although its population is relatively small, Australia supports a substantial entertainment industry sector. This chapter surveys the Australian entertainment industries, providing a snapshot of key institutions and organisations; as well as an analysis of local issues such as indigenous representation, Australia’s entertainment import/export dynamics, the impact of global media organisations’ industry movements on Australian entertainment, and the numerous ways in which Australian entertainment industries have been impacted by, and responded to, digital transformations. The chapter concludes with a case study of the successful Australian web series The Katering Show, focussing on the ways in which Australian pro-am digital content producers are negotiating the broader global digital entertainment sphere. Introduction: Australian Entertainment Industries in Global Perspective Australia is among the world’s upper-middle countries in terms of the size of its entertainment and media industries. In 2016, entertainment and media spending accounted for $A39.5 billion, or 3.3% of GDP, and Australia is the world’s fourteenth largest entertainment and media market (PwC, 2017). As a predominantly English- speaking nation, Australia has been very open to cultural imports from the United States and Britain in particular, although with an increasingly multicultural population, there is entertainment and media content from around the world (Flew, 2017). This in turn gives Australian entertainment industries a strong export orientation, and arguably an outsized influence in global entertainment. A cursory glance at the major figures of world entertainment points to a lot of internationally famous Australians in acting (Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett, Chris Hemsworth, Russell Crowe), screen directing (Phil Noyce, George Miller, Baz Luhrmann), music (AC/DC, Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue, Iggy Azalea), theatre (Tim Minchin, Barry Humphries), and so on. Australia is also internationally renowned for its digital games industry, urban cultural precincts, innovative art museums such as the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, and screen locations, such as the desert landscapes used for the Mad Max films. Overseas media content, particularly from the U.S. but also from the U.K., has had a prominent role in all Australian media, including commercial TV, national broadcasting, radio music, cinema, games and streaming services. As a result, Australian media and cultural policy has, since the 1960s, placed a strong emphasis on promoting local (national) content production. Australian governments have applied local content quotas to television in order to stimulate Australian production of drama, children’s television and documentaries, requiring the commercial TV networks to screen minimum amounts of Australian content in prime-time schedules, and acting as a catalyst for the local screen industries to produce original content. This does lead to a certain amount of “copycat TV”, as local production houses adapt international formats for domestic audiences. For instance, virtually every significant reality/contest-based format developed in the 2000s has had an Australian version, from Big Brother and Master Chef to The Voice and I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. It has also meant that local productions have developed significant international audiences: the popularity of Neighbours and Home and Away in the U.K. is a notable case in point. The politics of representation and national identity are a recurring theme in Australia, and such debates play out strongly in the entertainment industries. It has been observed that, in spite of over 40 years of very active debate around the dominance of white Anglo-Australians in Australian television, you are still more likely to see the cultural diversity of Australia in talent and cooking shows than in dramas or as the hosts of popular programs (Screen Australia, 2016). Indigenous representation presents issues not only about race and racism, but around the construct of the Australian nation itself, and whether European settlers stole the land from the First Peoples. There has long been a strong indigenous entertainment industry presence, with leading filmmakers such as Warwick Thornton, Ivan Sen and Rachel Perkins, and prominent actors such as Deborah Mailman, Aaron Pedersen and Kylie Belling following on from pioneers such as Erne Dingo, Justine Saunders and David Gulpilil. Productions such as the TV drama Cleverman (featuring an indigenous superhero) and the film The Sapphires (about an indigenous girl group that performed for soldiers during the Vietnam War) advance indigenous representation beyond that of “standing in” for representation of social problems primarily understood from a non-indigenous perspective (Blackmore, 2015). Australian Entertainment Institutions The Australian entertainment industries are shaped by a mix of public- and private- sector institutions, small operations as well as giant media conglomerates, and domestic and international players. In broadcasting, the “dual system” of a strong national public service broadcaster (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)) co-existing with significant commercial stations was replicated when television commenced in 1956. While the majority of Australians watch and listen to commercial broadcasters, the ABC accounts for about 15 to 30% of audience share, and is the leading broadcaster in genres such as arts, science, comedy, news and current affairs, documentary, and investigative journalism. It has been complemented by the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), established in 1980 as an explicitly multicultural radio and television service, in acknowledgement of the notable lack of cultural, racial and ethnic diversity of the Australian broadcasting industry (Ang, Hawkins and Dbboussy, 2008). Both the ABC and SBS have a strong online presence, with ABC iView resembling the BBC iPlayer in the UK with its rich mix of freely available content. There is one cable television provider, Foxtel, partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which about 30% of Australian homes subscribe to. Video streaming services have proven to be extremely popular among Australians, and it is estimated that in 2017 the number of subscription video-on-demand households exceeds that of pay TV subscribers (Roy Morgan, 2016). The most popular streaming service is Netflix, which has very little Australian content, but other popular services include Stan, Quickflix, YouTube Red, Foxtel Play, and the channels of ABC, SBS and the commercial networks. Stan is proving to be particularly interesting in terms of investment in local content, having commissioned a number of local drama and comedy productions, including series based on the popular films Wolf Creek and Romper Stomper. The Australian film industry has also benefited from strong government support since the 1970s, and the rise of cultural nationalism under the Whitlam, Hawke and Keating Labor governments. Reflecting a recurring tension between cultural policy and industry development rationales for supporting media and creative industries, there have been both film subsidies to promote “quality” Australian cinema, and various taxation and other incentives to promote avowedly commercial productions (O’Regan,2001). Global hits such as Crocodile Dundee, Babe and Mad Max: Fury Road clearly come out of the latter tradition. The Australian screen industries have a complex and well-established network of creative talent, production infrastructure, locations, incentives and partnerships, with government at all levels playing a very active role in shaping an industry that aims to combine commercial success with a degree of “brand ambassadorship” around promoting Australia