Many feature producers fear the Federal Government's sweeping media reforms will spell the death knell of Australian features, forcing them and some writers and directors to focus on content for streamers or free-to-air broadcasters.
Producers of narrative features and feature documentaries fear that reducing the Producer Offset for films to 30 per cent will have a devastating impact on theatrical releases.
In a major overhaul of the regulatory system, the Federal Government is scrapping the fixed quotas for local drama, children's programming and documentary and harmonising the film and TV Producer Offsets at 30 per cent.
The 12 successful applicants for Attagurl, the narrative feature film development lab to support female and non-binary filmmakers from around the world, will be announced next week, and Deanne Weir is excited.
Screen Producers Australia (SPA) has warned that Free TV Australia's proposed voluntary points system for Australian content would have disastrous consequences for the screen sector.
"Whether children’s content is a doona to hide under, or a superhero cape to throw over your shoulders, now more than ever it’s needed. Globally!"
ViacomCBS is calling for the scrapping of the drama quota, pointing to the steep decline in commercial free-to-air viewing of Australian dramas in the past 10 years, which is worse than the overall drop in FTA levels.
Stan has warned the Federal Government that mandating minimum levels of spending on Australian content would undermine the streaming industry’s ability to generate the revenues needed to invest in high-quality Australian productions.