Screen Australia head of content Grainne Brunsdon looks ahead to 2024 amid shifts in both the agency's content and executive team.
Ana Kokkinos, Leah Purcell, Julie Kalceff, Fadia Abboud and Lucy Gaffy will helm anthology feature drama 'Here Out West', penned by eight emerging writers and now shooting in Sydney.
The amount spent on scripted content in Australia in the last financial year - $2.34 billion across 213 titles - is only a smidgen down on the prior year's record high of $2.43 billion. Yet whereas 2021/22's result was driven by unseen levels of expenditure on local drama, 2022/23 was fuelled by an all-time high in foreign spend.
Some $1.17 billion was spent on drama production in Australia in the last financial year - the second highest year on record and more than 50 per cent up on the previous year - driven by all-time high expenditure on local content and significantly bolstered levels of foreign spend.
Despite the pandemic, there was still almost $1 billion spent on drama production in Australia in the last financial year, indicating the sector had been on track for a potentially record-breaking year before it was interrupted.
The production boom shows no sign of slowing down: More money is being spent on drama in Australia than ever before, and significantly, the majority of spend is occurring on local projects.
ACMA data showing five of the major SVODs – Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, Paramount+, and Stan – spent $335.1 million in 2021/22 on Australian programming demonstrates the viability of 20 per cent local content obligation for streamers, SPA says.
The last financial year saw the amount spent on drama production in Australia crack $1 billion for the first time, thanks in part to record levels of foreign project spend and bolstered local feature film production.