It’s slim pickings for viewers as local kids’ content plummets

Originally published in The Age

If you’ve struggled to find something to watch on family movie night recently, you’re not alone. Australia is experiencing a dearth of family-friendly content that has industry experts worried. Streaming services and commercial networks alike have shown a reduced appetite for locally made G and PG content.

It’s slim pickings for new and homegrown viewing, says Bernadette O’Mahony, acting chief executive and head of content at Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

“For kids and families, the market is nearly non-existent,” she says. “If you take out what we would call general viewing, game shows and reality television, there’s not much in the drama space for families to watch together. There’s back-catalogue shows on platforms, but there’s not a lot of new commissions coming from any of the broadcasters.”

Australia is not the only country facing a lack of children’s television. Internationally, demand for scripted television seasons ordered between 2022 and 2023 fell in the US, Canada and the UK, according to market research presented at the global Kidscreen Summit last month.

Demand for kid-friendly content fell by 30 per cent in Australia, which came in just behind Mexico at 38 per cent, the US at 37 per cent and India at 36 per cent.

The pressure for Australian-made content to be successfully packaged for overseas markets is holding the sector back, says O’Mahony.

“It’s very hard for Australian writers and producers to get the great original ideas that are here because the international market isn’t very interested in those,” she says.

“They’re often seen as too local or they don’t come with an inbuilt marketing strategy. So there’s a lot of things that have conspired to make the market more difficult.

“There’s a real push for globalisation of kids and family content, which has its place too, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of the local stories and local voices and local experiences, particularly for kids to be able to watch with their parents and to be able to talk about those things.”

The InBESTigators (Gristmill for the ABC) was one of many popular series made locally before quotas were abandoned.

The decline in locally made film and television can be traced back to the removal of federal government quotas for local children’s television on free-to-air commercial networks in 2020. It prefaced Australian children’s content falling off a cliff with a 84 per cent decrease occurring between 2019 and 2022, according to Australian Communications and Media Authority data.

Aside from a smattering of shows – including Surviving Summer and Eddie’s Lil’ Homies on Netflix – streaming services have not picked up the slack.

Australian-made family-friendly film and television was thriving in the years before quotas were ditched with a swathe of popular titles released between 2010 and 2020 including Little Lunch, The InBESTigators, Oddball and Paper Planes.

Crazy Fun Park, Werner Film Productions for the ABC

Film producer Jo Werner, whose company was bought by the BBC this month and has a slew of young adult and family titles to her name including Surviving Summer, Dance Academy and Crazy Fun Park, says the industry needs better support.

“I would absolutely love to see more family films made,” she says. “Because of the streamers, it’s mostly international shows and movies that we’re watching. I think Australia does incredibly well in kids’ television, and a lot of those shows extend to being family viewing.

“A lot of them are written for kids and older kids’ audiences, but then find that family viewing as well. So I think it’s something that we do well, but it’s something that we need to fiercely protect because it’s expensive to make, and so we really do need the support of the networks and the streamers to make sure that more is made.”

Capturing the imaginations and eyeballs of parents and kids – a demographic spanning anywhere from six to 60 – is no easy task. For Werner, diversity in the age of writers is essential in creating layered humour and appeal.

“For something like Surviving Summer, we will have younger, emerging writers and we really love to give first-time writers a shot at a script and to really make sure that we’ve got that authentic view, the voice of the characters,” she says.

“But we also love the experience of older writers in the room and writers who are parents, because they will be audience members as well, and so that helps us to layer in storylines and jokes and appealing things to different ages.”

Windcatcher, Every Cloud Productions and Unless Pictures for Stan. and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation

Nailing a sense of verisimilitude whilst handling thorny topics in a sensitive way is key to keeping family viewers watching.

A set of golden rules guided screenwriter Boyd Quakawoot as he penned the new Stan film Windcatcher, which touches on death and grief. He watched a number of movies tackling death in families, such as Bridge to Terabithia, The Mighty and A Monster Calls.

“It was just to see how they deal with death in those situations because I didn’t want to make the scenes too scary or too intense for kids. It’s got to be enough that they get it, but they’re not afraid of it, which is a big thing I think.”

Windcatcher is the story of Percy Boy, played by Lennox Monaghan, and his friends who try to win the local school sports day title from a group of grade five bullies. Starring Pia Miranda, Jessica Mauboy and Kelton Pell, the film is the first co-commission between Stan and ACTF.

Quakawoot said it’s a great step for locally made family content and indigenous writers like himself.

“For me, personally, with Windcatcher being made it’s a big plus and I think for indigenous writers as well, that people want to take chances in the marketplace, like Stan and ACTF, about putting stories with indigenous people, especially young indigenous people, like those kids out there as well,” he says.

With a background in social services and a treasure trove of memories from his childhood, Quakawoot said there are plenty more stories he hopes to tell.

“I would love to actually do a sequel to Windcatcher because I think there’s a lot of potential in Percy Boy’s story and his friends as well,” he says.

“When I write things, I try to go for three things; humour, heart and the bittersweet. When you see them, it doesn’t matter that you’re a kid or an adult, it touches you and it resonates with you.”