Streaming platforms are increasingly offering unrealistic budgets and unfair commissioning deals to Australian screen producers, according to new data from Screen Producers Australia (SPA).
As part of its second commissioning survey, conducted from December 2022 to January 2023, the organisation invited members to answer perception-based questions, regardless of their experience with streaming platforms, with those that had engaged in deals asked to comment on how they found the process.
While SPA reported some improvement in the reported practices and behaviours across the industry from the inaugural 2021 survey, including in administrative complexities and communication, there were multiple areas of concern across the 16 commissioning platforms, which were grouped as public broadcasters, commercial free-to-air networks, subscription TV broadcasters/providers and streaming services.
Of the 110 respondents that worked with streaming services between 2020 and 2022, only 40 per cent agreed their deals were fair in relation to overall budgets, deliverables, terms of trade, and rights retained, a drop of 36 per cent from the previous survey, which featured 301 responses.
One international streamer stood out as particularly unfair, with just 10 per cent of producers who have been commissioned by them over the last three years regarding them as offering fair deals.
Further, 36 per cent reported they had to agree to unfavourable variations to an existing deal with a streamer that offered no material benefits, representing an increase of 19 per cent from 2021.
Free-to-air networks remain the platforms that producers feel offer the least appropriate budgets to match their delivery expectations, while 24 per cent of producers have reported that they have been encouraged to commence production without an official greenlight in the last 12 months, and 26 per cent reported said they had been pressured into variations (additional deliverables, or additional rights) without any material benefits.
SPA CEO Matthew Deaner said the results highlighted the harmful and unfair industry conditions for Australian production businesses, a majority of whom are small to medium-sized enterprises, and identify poor business practices imported by international streamers here in Australia.
“Many of the streaming platforms’ business practices are comparable to fishing ‘super-trawlers’ with nets trawling our screen industry scooping up rights to our nation’s stories for at best, incredibly long lengths of time – at worst, in perpetuity – and often, when they don’t intend to use them,” he said.
“This denies our SMEs and creatives the use and financial benefits of their own ideas in an ongoing way which in turn reduces the capacity they have to generate and develop their next ideas – thereby permanently damaging our screen ecosystem.
“Our screen industry is holding its breath to see whether the Australian Government will stand up for Australian audiences and its storytellers in the screen industry by introducing a 20 per cent reinvestment obligation on streamers with strong protections for intellectual property such as a reversion of rights to creators to ensure that we continue to foster a sustainable and vibrant screen sector in Australia for the benefit of our industry and audiences alike.”
Find the full report here.