SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA

October 2010

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Spotlight on AUSTRALIA MIPCOM Special Edition

www.mipcom.com ALSO INSIDE

GREGOR JORDAN KEYNOTE Inside, page 8

A N

O F F I C I A L

TV AUDIENCES ARE UP DOWN UNDER Inside, page 26

M I P C O M

Content for sale • Meet the broadcasters • Filming in Australia • New revenue streams • Australia's modern-day pioneers • Programming for children ... and more

P U B L I C AT I O N

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EDITORIAL

Dear Friends, Over the past 12 months, the Australian broadcasting landscape has changed, as a raft of digital channels has been launched by the traditional free-to-air broadcasters. New IPTV players such as FetchTV and Telstra have entered the market and viewing habits are changing with the introduction of catch-up TV and VOD services from TiVo, the ABC’s iView and pay television provider Foxtel.

Consumer spending on entertainment has been resilient, rising 8% last year on the back of strong consumer demand for films, books, pay-TV and internet content.

Laurine Garaude

It’s against this background and because of Australia’s innovative content across all platforms, that MIPCOM 2010 welcomes a delegation of over 250 Australian entertainment executives to Cannes, and has designated Tuesday, October 5, as Spotlight On Australia day.

Starting with Ned Kelly director and screenwriter Gregor Jordan’s keynote address, where he’ll be discussing the launch of transmedia project Smashcut, and continuing with FremantleMedia Australia CEO Ian Hogg’s presentation of what makes a powerhouse global format, Australia will be upfront and centre at MIPCOM 2010.

I’d like to thank Screen Australia, sponsor and long-running supporter of our MIP markets, which is unveiling the country’s new international co-production guidelines. We would also like to welcome Tourism Australia for the first time to MIPCOM, here in Cannes to discuss the launch of a new broadcasting initiative.

As part of our Spotlight we are delighted to provide you with this special edition focusing on the vibrant Australian market, and hope you find it of particular value.

Laurine Garaude Director of the Television Division

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CONTENTS

Developed with the assistance of Screen Australia and Film Victoria, Get Ace, a new 26-part animation series from Australian production company Galaxy Pop, makes its international debut at MIPCOM. Ace McDougal is a 12year-old nerd who is catapulted into a life of adventure after he is accidentally fitted out with high-tech spy braces. Get Ace is set to debut on Network Ten towards the end of 2012.

Spotlight on Australia • MIPCOM Special Edition October 2010 Director of publications: Paul Zilk The Get Ace Cast

Editorial Department – Editor in Chief: Julian Newby – Deputy Editor: Debbie Lincoln – Sub Editor: Phil Sommerich – Contributors: Natalie Apostolou, Pip Bulbeck, Sandy George – Technical Editor in Chief: Herve Traisnel – Deputy Technical Editor in Chief: Frederic Beauseigneur – Graphic Designer: Carole Peres – Editorial Management: Boutique Editions Ltd.

Management, Marketing & Sales Team – Director of the Television Division: Laurine Garaude – Director of Digital Media: Ted Baracos – Sales Director: Sabine Chemaly – Communications and Partnerships Manager: Dee Perryman – Programme Director : Tania Dugaro – Managing Director (UK / Australia / New Zealand): Peter Rhodes OBE – Sales Manager: Elizabeth Delaney – Vice President Sales and Business Development, Americas: Robert Marking – Vice President Business Development, North America: JP Bommel – Executive Sales Director, North America: MJ Sorenson – Sales executive : Panayiota Pagoulatos – Sales Manager: Paul Barbaro – Sales Manager: Nathalie Gastone – International Sales Manager: Fabienne Germond, Olivia Screpel – Sales Manager: Samira Haddi – Digital Media Sales Manager: Nancy Denole – Australia and New Zealand Representative: Natalie Apostolou – China Representative: Anke Redl – CIS Representative: Alexandra Modestova – Czech Republic and Slovakia Representative: Milan Stritesky – English speaking Africa representative: Arnaud de Nanteuil – India Representative: Anil Wanvari – Israel Representative: Guy Martinovsky – Japan Representative: Lily Ono – Latin America Representative: Elisa Aquino – Middle-East Representative: Bassil Hajjar – Poland Representative: Monika Bednarek – South Korea Representative: Sunny Kim – Taiwan Representative: Irene Liu – Germany Mobile & Music Representative: Renate Radke Adam – Germany Advertising Representative: Nathalie Daube www.mipcom.com Published by Reed MIDEM BP 572 11, rue du Colonel Pierre Avia 75726 Paris Cedex 15 Contents © 2010 Reed MIDEM Market Publications Printed on 100% Publication Registered: 4th quarter 2010 recycled paper

©2010 Galaxy Pop

Production Department – Content Director: Jean-Marc Andre – Publications Production and Development Manager: Martin Screpel – Publishing Coordinators: Amrane Lamiri, Bruno Piauger – Production Assistants: Emilie Lambert, David Le Chapelain – Production Assistant, Cannes Office: Eric Laurent – Printer: Riccobono Imprimeurs – Le Muy (France)

See more Australian Product News, page 20

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NEWS Spotlight On Australia: conferences

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AUSTRALIA’S MODERN-DAY PIONEERS

20 PRODUCT NEWS

26 32 37 42 46

FEATURES Meet the broadcasters TV tunes in to a digital economy New revenue streams Kids’ programming Incentives: filming in Australia

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: NEWS

A WARM WELCOME FOR PRODUCERS IN THE afternoon at 14.45, following the Australia lunch, the Working With Australia Workshop & Matchmaking Event gives delegates the opportunity to meet the leaders behind the new opportunities that the region offers international producers. Screen Australia’s Fiona Cameron will launch the country's new international co-production guidelines during the workshop, and will be joined by representatives from other relevant bodies including Tania Chambers of Screen NSW, Emma Humphreys of Tourism Australia, Jane Roscoe of the Special Broadcasting Services Corporation, and Jenni Tosi of Film Victoria.

Australia’s new co-production guidelines are designed to reflect the realities of modern screen production, according to Fiona Cameron.

“All official co-productions have access to Australia's generous, uncapped producer offset — a 40% rebate for feature films and 20% for TV and documentary,” she said.

Australia has treaties with the UK, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Germany, Singapore and China and Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with France and New Zealand. "Australian filmmakers want to work with the best talent to produce engaging global stories and these new guidelines make working with us internationally, very attractive," Cameron added.

Fiona Cameron

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Filmmaker’s new Smashcut project offers creative online environment to producers AUSTRALIAN film director Gregor Jordan gives the Spotlight On Australia opening keynote, Tuesday October 5 at 10.30. The keynote will include the global launch of transmedia project Smashcut, co-produced by Jordan and transmedia specialist The Project Factory. Jordan will be interviewed during the keynote session, by Project Factory founder Guy Gadney.

Jordan describes Smashcut as “a brand new platform for marketing and distributing a wide variety of content in a completely unique way”. It is an interactive website where users are able to create their own edits of raw footage from music videos, live concerts, dramas, and

Gregor Jordan: capturing creative spirit online

TV commercials, using a streaming video editing tool.

When Jordan started out as a filmmaker, he emerged from a

community of actors, directors and film makers who shared their visions and informed each other’s work.

“What I wanted to do when developing Smashcut was to capture that creative spirit online,” Jordan said.

“Inter-media partnerships are the way forward for existing television and film production companies,” Gadney said. “Smashcut provides a low-risk and highly-flexible model for production companies to experiment, test concepts, innovate and learn. This is the main theme we find recurring this year for The Project Factory, and these partnerships are the main growth area for our company.”

Case studies present the Australia of the future A SERIES of case studies under the title What’s Going On Down Under, chaired by Marcus Gillezeau, executive producer, Firelight Productions, begins Tuesday, October 5 at 11.00, with a session titled Cross Platform Content & Alternative Revenue Streams, when delegates will hear of the digital innovation and transmedia creativity that is coming out of Australia. Among those taking part are Foxtel's Ross Crowley, who will reveal details of the newly commissioned drama series Slide which has been created with cross-platform opportunities in mind. Slide will offer audiences new ways of engaging with the story and its characters, on mobile and over broadband.

In the same session Jarod Green and The Wiggles’ Mike Conway share the secrets of creating and monetising brands that live across all platforms.

Celebrating The Wiggles’ 20th year, during which time they have sold over 30 million DVDs and albums and cre-

ated 900 licensed products, Conway will touch on the development of a range of pre-school applications, the launch of Wii and Playstation games, and the website, wiggletime.com.

The case study 360 Programming The Producer and The Broadcaster, features FremantleMedia Australia CEO Ian Hogg. Brand extension is core to FremantleMedia’s business strategy, according to Hogg. "The point of the television business is no

Ian Hogg: “Compelling stories make great brands”

longer to make shows, but to create branded entertainment franchises,” he said. “Compelling stories make great brands. Constructing messages across multiple consumer touch points, especially social media, is the key to brand resonance in 2010. Networks, producers and production companies who can get that move right are not ahead of the game, they are merely where the game begins."

Part two of the case study features ABC’s Kim Dalton, who oversees a network that has grown from one to five cross-platform channels. “The real challenge, aside from technology and integrating new platforms, is how the breadth and range of Australian content is going to exist, and continue to flourish, in this new environment,” Dalton said.

In the third case study, Australia's Broadband Future, Telstra’s Andrew Lambert, and Fetch TV’s Lauren McLaughlin, will both unveil their new IPTV strategies to the market.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: MODERN-DAY PIONEERS

PLEASED TO MEET YOU

A look at the future Down Under Is it the mix of Australia’s sun, surf and sand that inspires so many new-media auteurs? We meet some of the pioneers who are bending the rules on how we create, consume and distribute content Carl and Mark Fennessy • Joint CEOs • Shine Australia THE FENNESSY brothers are passionate about great content, but more importantly they are passionate about the creators of great content.

As the duo behind a raft of Australia’s hottest TV properties, they have a pedigree in progressive content development and have maintained an independent production spirit from the launch of their boutique production company, Crackerjack, through to its merger with Grundy Television to form FremantleMedia Australia in 2006.

As Fremantle enjoyed a stellar run with the Fennessys at its helm, it was no surprise that Elisabeth Murdoch tapped them on the shoulder to launch and run the Australian arm of Shine in late 2009.

“As independent producers we have run the corner store [Crackerjack] and the supermarket [FremantleMedia], but Shine is by far the best of both worlds and then some,” Mark Fennessy says.

Being a start-up in such a small,

competitive market is always a challenge but the Fennessys say they were genuinely attracted to downsizing and restructuring for a changing landscape.

“It was a rare opportunity that came along at the right time. In building a successful content business, Elisabeth Murdoch strikes a great balance between management and growth, so the focus always remains on what's taking you forward in a creative enterprise,” Mark Fennessy says.

“Ultimately she's a like-minded spirit who empowers us not only as producers but entrepreneurs, and backs us all the way.”

He also believes that, as a majority Australian-owned company, the presence of Shine is a significant boost for the local creative community.

“Broadcasters and distributors look increasingly to the independent producers, and we are creating more diverse and exciting opportunities for the production sector.”

Nine months into the life of

Carl (left) and Mark Fennessy

Shine Australia, the Fennessys have put together their dreamteam, including: Paul Franklin, director of programming; Julie Ward, director of entertainment, and Sara Horn, director of production. They also snapped up 27-year-old Chris Culvenor from Fremantle as their director of development to drive multi-platform innovation.

“Our market remains a hybrid mix of offshore tape coupled with local adaptations of suc-

cessful formats. However, we remain a true champion of original ideas. Placing unproven content is still an uphill battle in a riskaverse market but the broadcasters are taking more risks as the market becomes increasingly competitive. So the rewards are there for those who persist. It's a fabulous time to be in the content business and Shine is at the very forefront of supporting the Australian creative community.”

LOOK OUT FOR: Projects with one of Australia's most popular YouTube bloggers; collaborations with Google, Facebook and Hoodlum. They are mining the local creative community with Shine PitchBay (www.shineaustralia.com/pitchbay), allowing members of the public to submit ideas for programmes directly to the development team.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: MODERN-DAY PIONEERS

Guy Gadney • Director • The Project Factory IMAGINE taking the digital pulse from a major media company and merging it with the mind of mobile industry pioneer, add a technically eclectic supporting cast and a global network of clients begging for innovation and you might just get transmedia production hothouse The Project Factory.

“Digital revenue streams are quirky, flexible and emerging rapidly. By sitting in the transmedia space across online, mobile, games and experiential platforms, and from our directors’ experience at the top of major media companies, we can spot trends and our productions are created to meet these,” says founder Guy Gadney.

The company was launched on the basis that online and mobile platforms are very powerful narrative forces, and that TV and movie productions would soon be realising the need to have interactivity as part of the mix to reach mainstream audiences.

As former PBL Media digital head, Gadney and business

partner Jennifer Wilson, former head of innovation at NineMSN, have witnessed audience behaviour shifting towards digital media at a speed that has surprised traditional media owners.

“Our position is to provide media owners with interactive entertainment that reach these audiences worldwide,” Gadney says.

Since launching 18 months ago, the company has worked with many Australian film and television production companies and broadcasters.

“Every digital product we create is viewed as a start-up business.

As well as the creative, we focus on defining the revenue streams, investment strategies and cash flow forecasts. Traditionally, this has been mission impossible for media owners and producers, who are used to well-established revenue models.”

Guy Gadney and The Project Factory team

Projects have included digital product creation to support books from publisher Random House, television shows from the ABC and Channel Ten, and a step into the movie industry with the launch at MIPCOM 2010 of a co-production, Smashcut, with director Gregor Jordan.

“Smashcut offers a new platform for marketing, distribution and

monetisation for media makers.

The concept is simple: we are providing the dailies of key moments in movies, television shows and music videos. Users then create new versions that can be published on broader social media. This provides exposure for new talent in the industry, as well as additional exposure for the movie,” Gadney explains.

LOOK OUT FOR: A number of major original transmedia formats and concepts that will roll out in 2011.

Jon Penn • CEO • FremantleMedia Enterprises, Asia Pacific WHAT Jon Penn doesn’t know about brand extension isn’t really worth knowing. As CEO of FremantleMedia Enterprises, Asia Pacific, Penn is behind the brands that have taken viewers beyond the passivity of simply watching. Whether it is buying one of the 250,000 MasterChef cupcake kits sold in the last 12 months, downloading an Australian Idol’s new single or heading to the Grand Designs home expo, Penn has pushed the brand and audience engagement across new territories.

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And as Australia and Asia lean into more digital content distribution platforms, FME is ready to take content wherever the eyeballs follow “We embrace those platforms in a non-exclusive way. Content will also be of utmost importance and we are content makers, not broadcasters, and as we move into that IPTV future we are in a good position in that regard,” Penn says.

Emerging from Australia’s dotcom trailblazing days as business development manager with Fairfax Digital, Penn

has been waiting a long time for audiences and technology to catch up with digital possibilities for content.

The FME business wheel of value puts the IP or brand at the core, with every spoke coming out, from digital to licensing to live events to sponsorship, intimately co-ordinated.

The 360-degree approach is taking FME into areas such as brand-funded entertainment, which took off in Asia this year and Penn predicts is poised to hit Australia. “The rubber will hit the road in Australia in the next

Jon Penn

two years. We will see the first fully funded branded show on FTA, and all the skirmishes about how content is funded is will diminish. It is a natural evolution.”

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: MODERN-DAY PIONEERS

Arul Baskaran • Controller of multiplatform production • ABC TV iView, taking 2.3 million viewers a month online and on demand with ABC content, while extending the experience to gaming consoles with Sony’s PS3, connected TV and, coming soon, the iPad. "We'd like to be as ubiquitous as the web with iView — all devices that have browsers, that can run an internet site,” he says. By gaining unmetered broadband deals with ISPs, the iView platform showed the in-

AS THE brains behind the ABC’s strategic direction for internet broadcasting, convergent production, development of new services, tools and applications, and crafting websites and social communities around the broadcaster’s TV content over the internet, mobile devices and emerging platforms, Arul Baskaran has little time to think of anything other than digital.

He has helped pioneer catchup TV services in Australia with

dustry and consumers alike what is possible with video and ubiquitous high-speed networks. "The catalyst for success is our partnerships with ISPs and was very important to the first two years when we were trying to build an audience base," Baskaran says.

As a broadcaster at heart, he maintains: “Our strength lies in content. But content on its own has little value if it can't reach its intended audience."

Arul Baskaran

Lisa Gray • Head of content • The Feds foundation of a Screen Australia and Content Mint co-production called Wildspace for ABC 3.

Working with agencies such as DDB and M&C Saatchi Sydney, brands such as Telstra and Woolworths, networks and music labels, Gray infuses every project with the true spirit of cross-platform innovation. A recent project, Telstra Sushi Plane, took a tribe of 18- to 25-year-

WITH a background in music, TV drama and digital, and a zeal for creating content that sticks to audiences and platforms alike, Lisa Gray knows how to make pixels pop.

At multi-platform production house The Feds, she made digital heads turn with her work on the ABC’s Gruen Transfer video mash-up tool. That award-winning device is now the

olds to the streets of Tokyo to play ARG mobile games on their HTC phones. The output has been turned into a series of TVCs and three-minute web spots.

She mentors industry colleagues via XMedia Labs and the AFTRS, and has won international recognition for projects including her ecological tamagoshi game Habitat, a finalist for Content 360 in April.

Lisa Gray

LOOK OUT FOR: Stay Tuned, an interactive 20-part, half-hour weekly music show for teens for the ABC. Rohan Lund • CEO of Yahoo!7 and chairman of Yahoo!Xtra in New Zealand AS ARCHITECT of the joint venture between search giant Yahoo! and Australian broadcaster the Seven Network in 2006 Rohun Lund has been at the coalface of the transition of old media into whatever the new-media pipeline of the moment may be.

“Up to this point, the TV experience has been a passive one.

However, as TVs become more PC-like, with internet connectivity , the possibilities exist for a more interactive experience for users — and for content pub-

lishers — the ability to deliver content outside of the traditional broadcast technology constraints,” Lund says.

With IPTV firmly in mind, recent months have seen Yahoo!7 broker deals with Panasonic to stream content on Viera Cast-enabled TVs and with Sony to allow PS3 console users to access Yahoo!7′s PLUS7 catch-up TV service.

On the digital content side, Yahoo!7 has been launching deeply targeted content verticals, aiming at lucrative online advertising

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markets such as travel, lifestyle, sport and technology.

“Being able to generate audiences at scale will remain critical as the proliferation of devices and that fragmentation of media environments and audiences continues,” Lund says.

His strategy is to take a device-agonistic approach to extending reach beyond the PC and give users the choice to access content on any internet-enabled device.

“We have built our technology platforms and content to enable

flexibility which allows us to configure our content experiences to whatever the various devices and platforms require. We are in effect creating new windows and doors to Yahoo!7.”

Rohan Lund

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: MODERN-DAY PIONEERS

Nathan Mayfield & Tracey Robertson • Founders • Hoodlum LAUNCHING a production company with cross-platform innovation in mind at the height of the dotcom frenzy in 1999 may have made sense in the New York, but in Brisbane it was just a little ahead of its time.

Luckily, the perseverance of the team of Nathan Mayfield and Tracey Robertson has turned their little digital shop into an Emmy- and BAFTA-award-winning studio.

With an international client base that boasts US ABC series Lost and Flash Forward, the BBC’s Spooks, ITV’s Emmerdale and Primeval, they are now entrenched as the go-to guys for interactive, inte-

grated online and mobile storytelling for TV productions. While flitting between Brisbane and Los Angeles, Mayfield is also driving Hoodlum’s foray into the creation of multi-platform campaigns for feature films.

Hoodlum has also worked with some of the leading global brands on branded-entertainment campaigns including Yahoo!, Pepsi and Toyota.

“We look to enhance the series that our work is contributing to whenever we’re working with a larger franchise. I think we’re developing a reputation for producing online productions that offer every bit of the quality the original shows

Nathan Mayfield and Tracey Robertson

offer,” Mayfield says. In Australia, Mayfield is in production for the launch of cross-media project Slide, a 10 x 60 mins series pro-

duced with Foxtel and Playmaker Media, with a multi-platform rollout beginning in Australia with international aspirations.

Andrew Lambert •General manager, content acquisition & strategic partnerships • Telstra Media Ben Kinealy • Head of IPTV • Telstra Media IT IS hard to be seen as a content innovators when you are known as the big, dumb pipe that carries the content around. But for Australia’s network provider, Telstra, all that is changing. A new national infrastructure, the NBN, supplanting its own, and a few new players nipping at its heels mean that the media revolution it has been plotting for years is getting the limelight. With a 50% ownership in Foxtel and the launch in July of its own IPTV set-top unit — the T-Box — things are getting interesting for Andrew Lambert and Ben Kinealy.

“While we have been active in the online and mobile media

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space for some time now, the T-Box is our first major product push into the living room and home entertainment,” Lambert says. “The additional functionality of on-demand viewing enhances the customer’s viewing experience

and empowers the individual. You program your own TV. We think that, as customers become familiar with this capability, it will grow consumption of movie and other content.”

With an established back-

Ben Kinealy

Andrew Lambert

ground in mobile and online sport content delivery and the production of live entertainment via BigPond Sports and BigPond TV, the carrier’s vision may also be extending to content production.

“Telstra is well positioned now to deliver media services to our customers across multiple screens and in multiple contexts/locations. At the same time, the opportunities provided by IPTV will enable niche producers to reach much larger audiences. As more devices are developed, there will be more demand for content and new formats to populate the offerings they provide,” Lambert adds.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: MODERN-DAY PIONEERS

Stephen Langsford • Founder and executive chairman • Quickflix • Board member of ScreenWest, Western Australia’s film funding agency

HE MAY have a background in accounting, but entrepreneur Stephen Langsford has managed to parlay his love for content into a viable business.

As Australia patiently waits for fast and inexpensive broadband to be ubiquitous, Quickflix has been building up a community of film and TV buffs that will take the digital leap.

Launched in 2004, the subscription-based online and mail-based DVD distribution model emulated that of Netflix and LoveFilm in the US and UK. “The first phase of Quickflix has been to build an online movie subscription service with deep personalisation and CRM over the web and via our iPhone app,” Langsford says. “Social media has replaced the water cooler for sharing the latest movie or TV show you've en-

joyed. We developed Quickflix to stand for the best way to discover what to watch, and that means having the most relevant search, contextual browsing and great personal recommendations.”

With the advent of IP-connected TVs and new digital distribution, Quickflix plans to leverage its online customer platform and content relationships to introduce streaming to a mass market. “Our mission is any movie, any device, any time, so we're extremely excited about the new IP connected devices including game consoles, Blu-ray Live players and connected TVs.” He adds that NBN will be a great opportunity for Quickflix and will propel take-up of its future streaming and download services.

Stephen Langsford

“Distributors will seek to meet the growing demand from consumers by making their digital movie and TV content available

in an earlier window. Brand, customers and a strong content and service offering will count for everything in this new world.”

Scott Lorson • CEO • Fetch TV SETTING up a white-label IPTV company in the midst of a fiercely competitive telecommunications market and a pay-TV market overshadowed by one

player is a daunting task, but Scott Lorson loves challenges.

The former PBL Media, Ticketek and Optus executive found it difficult to say no to Malaysia’s

second-richest man, Ananda Krishnan, when approached 18 months ago to launch a wholesale IPTV service in the Australian market.

Fetch’s approach is differ-

ent to any other player that has attempted a similar service and has already agitated the status quo.

With a focus on a content mix that covers both mainstream and niche interests

including foreign-language programming and overlaying the viewing experience with social media, web and gaming content, the appeal is broad and price point low.

LOOK OUT FOR: Fetch TV is also operating as an incubator for Krishnan’s Astro All Media Group and may soon be rolling out the Australian-developed IPTV platform to other markets.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: PRODUCT NEWS

Content for sale With the Spotlight On Australia in Cannes this week, we look at some of the series, movies, documentaries and multi-platform content on sale from down-under

Toy stories PRODUCED by Beyond Entertainment and distributed by Beyond Distribution, Toybox (73 x 30 mins) features presenters who become toy-sized and have fun with the toys that live in a toybox. Each episode has an overall story, interspersed with songs, drawings, spelling and number activities, as well as dance and movement sequences, created with early childhood development experts. From Beyond’s reality catalogue comes The Will: Family Secrets Revealed (10 x 60 mins), a series that looks at the legal complexities and family emotion surrounding the execution of a will, and in some circumstances the lack of a will, after the death of a family member.

Offspring (Endemol Worldwide Distribution) Toybox (Beyond Distribution)

Southern Star’s new baby Endemol Worldwide Distribution launches the new drama series Offspring at MIPCOM. Offspring is the story of obstetrician Nina Proudman (Asher Keddie), her boisterous family and her chaotic romances. Dr Chris Havel (Don Hany) would be a perfect partner if only his wife hadn’t gone missing a year ago. Her sister Billie (Kat Stewart) is screwed up; her little brother Jimmy (Richard Davies) is a charming but compulsive liar; her obstetric nurse friend Cherie has complicated everything by having had a baby with Nina’s dad Darcy (John Waters). Produced by Southern Star John Edwards for Network Ten Australia in association with Film Victoria this 1 x 2 hour telemovie and 13 x 1 hour series is the most successful new drama launched on Australia television this year, and has been commissioned for a second season. Edwards will executive produce along with Kim Vercera a second series of the escapist and romantic Australian drama series Spirited, which stars Claudia Karvan, Matt King and Roder Corser. Spirited is a Southern Star Entertainment production for Foxtel, with Screen Australia as a principal investor.

Serving up a selection

Quickies In My Kitchen (ABC Commercial)

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ABC COMMERCIAL (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) brings a full range of programming from its roster to MIPCOM. Firstly, Quickies In My Kitchen (13 x 30 mins) stars sassy cook Anna Gare creating a range of quick and easy food. The arts slate includes Swan Lake (136 mins), a live recording of the popular Tchaikovsky ballet from Sydney Opera House, and Art + Soul (3 x 60 mins) which looks at contemporary Australian Aboriginal art and artists.

From the comedy catalogue comes Lowdown (8 x 30 mins), about a celebrity gossip journalist, and I Rock (8 x 30 mins), which charts the path of a struggling indie-rock band.

Enter the twilight zone...

ON IT’s first visit to MIPCOM, Roboto brings its debut production Scariacs, a kids horror show designed to give children the thrill of suspense, but ultimately to know that their world is safe. The pilot was made with seed funding from Nickelodeon Australia. The creators, Simon Adams and Shane Elsmore, describe it as a “twilight zone” for kids, with new characters introduced each episode and a narrator to set up the story. There are two self-contained stories in each programme, and an underlying story developing through the series. The mystery element is continued in the show’s online world. The company also brings other series and film projects for development to MIPCOM.

Scariacs (Roboto)

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© Photo: bigpicturesphoto.com

PRODUCT NEWS

Celebrities for sale BIG PICTURES has been a celebrity news agency for the past 20 years with headquarters in London and Sydney. Headed up by Darryn Lyons, the company has now created Big Productions, that has co-produced a number of celebrity-based programmes and TV formats, including the series Exposed: Life Through A Lens which has been seen in over 80 territories. The Big pictures team is in Cannes licensing its archive of celebrity products including raw stills, video and text content, celebrity programmes and formats and to franchise its Mr.paparazzi.com website.

Big Pictures captures the stars

The Princess is back JONATHAN M. Shiff Productions, a producer of children’s drama, is launching series two of The Elephant Princess at MIPCOM. This series was produced with ZDF and ZDF Enterprises and tells the story of Alex who is battling to defend her kingdom from the evil witch Diva, but falls in love with Caleb, a handsome boy with a dangerous secret. This second series has a more mature storyline than the first, and features a rock soundtrack.

The company has also begun filming on new series Lightning Point. The series is about two alien girls who come to live in an Australian seaside town and recruit a local girl to keep them undercover. The series is a co-production with Germany’s ZDF, Network Ten Australia and Nickelodeon Australia, with investment from Screen Australia and Screen Queensland, and will be distributed worldwide

by ZDF Enterprises.

Living the Aussie dream

Tetsuya’s Pursuit Of Excellence (SBS Content Sales)

SBS CONTENT Sales brings a programming catalogue that crosses a range of genres.

Highlights include Tetsuya’s Pursuit Of Excellence (55 mins) that tells the story of a 22-year-old kitchen hand with no money, no professional experience and hardly any English, who became a world-renowned restaurateur in Australia. One-hour documentary The Silent Epidemic (55 mins) explores the biological science and social/environmental factors that cause a person to self-harm.

The company also brings two seasons of comedy series Wilfred, originally broadcast on SBS, which features a young couple and their crazy family and animals.

Undercover down-under FREMANTLEMEDIA Enterprises (FME) is highlighting three Australian series from its slate at MIPCOM. From the drama genre comes Cops L.A.C. (13 x 60 mins) featuring savvy plain-clothes detectives working alongside new recruits, set against the backdrop of Sydney’s suburbs, beaches and inner-city locations.

Grand Designs Australia, based on the UK show and hosted by architect Peter Maddison, follows the experiences of people who choose to build their own unusual and stunning homes.

Drama Killing Time meanwhile stars David Wenham as Australian lawyer, Andrew Fraser, who falls from the top of his game to a prison sentence due to cocaine addiction, and is forced to reflect where it all went wrong.

Cops L.A.C. (FME)

Cutters’ guide to good cooking

The Elephant Princess Series 2 (Jonathan M. Shiff Productions)

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MIPCOM first-timers Cyclops Films is at MIPCOM on the Screen Australia stand, and is highlighting its new series The Healthy Chef. Chef and personal trainer Teresa Cutter presents the show and demonstrates how to cook to promote good health and wellbeing. Each episode is packed with healthy tips and recipes, including a lasagne that has half the fat and twice the goodness of a traditional version. Cutter has written books and presented on other cooking shows, and has opened her first health cafe at Avalon Beach NSW.

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PRODUCT NEWS

Risky Business (CIRCEfilms)

Australia-US deal is driving new shows AUSTRALIAN production company CIRCEfilms has a slate of programming including features, factual and lifestyle entertainment series, drama, comedy, animation, arts and new media for both adult and children audiences. The company is at MIPCOM highlighting the fruits of its partnership with US television development company Iliad Entertainment. The seven programmes coming out of this deal are: See Australia And Die; coming-out show The Closet; The Juice, with hip wine expert and author Matt Skinner; Risky Business with world champion sky-diver, base jumper and all-round thrill-seeker Chris ‘Douggs’ McDouggal; and three series with celebrity chefs, Eat The Planet with Tobie Puttock; Kitchen Warrior with Karen Martini; and Pete’s Party with Pete Evans.

Pete’s Party (CIRCEfilms)

Bringing it all home HOME video specialist The Visual Entertainment Group celebrates its 21st birthday this year. Founded by Mike Dolbey, with partner Eddie McGuire, the company launched with the acquisition of the Australian Football League license, and the release of the Grand Final that year, getting the programme to market within 24 hours. The company has also released TV series including CSI and CSI Miami, in addition to a range of other genres and brands including Danielle Steel and Mary Higgins Clark movies, local and international comedy, documentaries and health and fitness titles including the Dummies brand. The Visual Entertainment Group recently launched into feature film.

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PRODUCT NEWS

© Dean Golja

How to get happy

The eight volunteers who are pushed to their emotional and physical limits

MAKING Australia Happy (8 x 60 mins), brought to MIPCOM by producer Heiress Films, looks at what it takes to make us happy. Science tells us that while 50% of happiness is genetic, only 10% is attributable to life circumstances, leaving 40% within individual control. In this format eight unhappy people sign up to an eight-week happiness course and, with the guidance of a team of experts, transform their lives. The series is structured as a factual entertainment show underscored with the latest research, combining group challenges with one-on-one interventions, the eight volunteers are pushed to their emotional and physical limits. The series is accompanied by a website, and the second series is currently in development.

GSB’s healthy business GSB PRODUCTIONS, based on the Screen Australia stand at MIPCOM, is a specialist in the creation of health media products in Australia, creating informative cross-platform health and lifestyle programming including magazine-style programmes, documentaries and interstitial formats. Topping the MIPCOM slate are two new formats — one with reality elements, the other a panel show — and a four-part documentary series with the working title The Survival Curve. The company’s series Plagued (known as Invisible Enemies in some markets), a co-production with the UK’s Channel 4, has already aired in 27 countries. All series are designed with a view to international versioning and cross-platform variations. At MIPCOM the company is prioritising international markets, especially Singapore, China, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Eastern and Western Europe.

A brand new direction

QUAIL TV’s 44-part series, Find My Family, had a successful run on the Seven Network and sparked US and UK productions of the Dutch format. The Sydney-based production company is at MIPCOM expanding into reality, scripted, light entertainment, feature film and brand-funded content, and has been recently commissioned by Australia’s Seven Network to deliver a new primetime reality series.

The company has also formed a brandfunded content division, Quail Content, which is already delivering product for major Sydney agencies and brands such as Mediacom, Volkswagen, Bacardi, Dell and Xbox.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: THE CHANNELS

M U LT I - C H A N N E L M A G I C Shine format Got To Dance, commissioned by Foxtel as Got To Dance Australia

Variety draws in the viewers Australians are spoilt for choice suddenly. A proliferation of new channels has brought the magic, and the viewers, back to the TV screen. Pip Bulbeck reports on the battle for eyeballs

A

USTRALIAN viewers have renewed their love affair with their TV sets this year as shows such as MasterChef, Underbelly, Packed To The Rafters and The Gruen Transfer draw audiences back to the living room in record numbers and the choice of channels available to consumers rapidly expands.

The hugely competitive nature of the Australian TV industry has ramped up this year as broadcasters chase fragmenting audiences and the country moves towards analogue switch-off in 2013 with a total of 15

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free-to-air digital channels — up from seven at the same time last year.

The most recent additions: Australia’s largest networks, Seven and Nine launched new general entertainment channels on the eve of MIPCOM. 7Mate is aimed at males aged 16-49 while Nine’s Gem channel targets a slightly older female audience.

They join youth-skewed Go!, 7Two, ABC3, ABCNews24, sports channel One and SBS2 as the newest of Australia’s digital terrestrial channels, while Network Ten will launch an-

other youth entertainment channel, 11, early in 2011.

Seven Network’s director of programming and production, Tim Worner, says: “Australian television has a very rich and colourful history of uber-competitiveness.

Sometimes it can be like a game of chess but more often the less kind distributors liken it to hand-tohand combat. At Seven we don't see it like that. It does get willing, but it is also respectful.”

That competitiveness has been a bonus for viewers and producers in

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: THE CHANNELS

The cast of Ten and Granada Australia's hit local format Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation

2010 as local programmes break ratings records.

The success of the MasterChef format in its first two seasons has become the stuff of TV legend.

Nearly five million viewers nationally watched the season two finale this year, while the nightly programmes delivered Network Ten an

“

Less kind

distributors liken it to hand-to-hand combat. We don't see it like that. It

does get willing, but it is also respectful Tim Worner

”

average audience of 1.7 million capital city viewers six nights a week.

These days if a programme gets more than a million viewers a night it is considered a ratings success.

MasterChef’s conquest of the ratings has led producers and broadcasters to search for the next big genre, while looking at ways of “upsizing” overseas formats for the Australian market without slavishly following a format bible.

One case in point: Don’t Stop Believing, which has underwhelmed UK audiences on Five, but which Ten has as a tentpole programme for 2011.

Ten’s chief programming officer, David Mott, said recently: “Anyone who’s seen the UK show has not seen our version. We’re evolving the show greatly, like we did with MasterChef.”

The same is true for homemakeover format, The Renovators,

also being launched by Ten and produced by Shine Australia, the creator of MasterChef, which Ten says will be like The Block meets MasterChef.

Formats aside, local dramas such as crime series Underbelly (Nine) and family drama Packed To The Rafters (Seven), are also drawing big audiences of around 1.8 million viewers a week, while local entertainment formats Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and The Gruen Transfer get more than 1.5 million viewers a week.

While Ten is looking for its next big hit, the Nine Network is hoping fro success with the return of homerenovation format The Block after six years, and Seven is pushing The X Factor Australia hard after Ten chose not to renew Australian Idol for a ninth season.

If the big audiences are still being found on the broadcaster’s primary

channels, it’s the digital multi-channel launches that have given a significant shake-up to the TV landscape, and their success has taken the industry by surprise.

TV viewing is up 2.9% overall this year. Nine’s Go!, the leading multichannel, has an average weekly share of around 5% in all demographics.

Digital penetration is 75%, two years ahead of switchover.

Network Ten CEO Grant Blackley said at Ten’s upfront presentation in September: “Australia has truly embraced multi-chanelling, and I think that will continue. Industry, government, broadcasters and retailers, we’re all working together to ensure this is a great success.”

For Ten, he says, it is a strategic opportunity to “broaden our offering to the market”.

Seven’s Worner adds: “The television

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: THE CHANNELS

audience in Australia is growing and there is no question that the new digital multi-channels are growing it even faster. Some cannibalisation is inevitable — let's be real — but the trick is to minimise it while optimising your other brands.

“At Seven we have extraordinary growth in 7Two's audience. It was like a light went on and the more we targeted that slightly older but more affluent audience, the faster it grew.

With 7Mate we have originated not just a brand but a destination. We are chasing the most elusive demographic

“

Now Nine, Seven and Ten programmers are shopping in the same boutique. I wish they’d head back to their supermarkets Matt Campbell

”

on television in younger males and the response from viewers and advertisers alike has been very positive.”

Part of the multi-channel’s success says Nine’s head of programming, Michael Healy, is that the networks have created “clearly defined brands” for their new outlets.

Both Nine’s main channel and its first digital channel, Go!, have had an “incredibly successful year” in their target demographics, 25-54 for the main channel and 16-49 for Go! “Go! is edgy, entertaining and a little bit dangerous, while our main chan-

Now Junior MasterChef is a hit in Australia. Here 2010 winner Adam Liaw (left) celebrates with runner-up Callum Hann

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nel is stable, confident and high-end.

We had a clear plan mapped out about the relationship between the two channels, were rigid about maintaining the core focus on what goes on those channels, and our strategy has paid off,” Healy says.

Go! has been the most successful of the new channel launches, consistently rating with a 5% share.

Nine’s philosophy has also been employed for its third channel, Gem, aimed at females 25 – 54.

Public broadcaster the ABC has a similar story, successfully launching

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: THE CHANNELS

Top-rated show The Gruen Transfer sells outside of Australia as The Big Sell

kids channel ABC3 and the country’s first free-to-air 24-hour news channel, ABC News 24, in the last nine months.

Indeed, the advent of ABC News 24 has fuelled a public debate between Australian 24-hour pay-TV service Sky News and the ABC which is not dissimilar in tone and argument to that between the BBC and Sky in the UK. Public-versus-commercial-broadcaster debates aside, ABC TV this year restructured its operating model, including appointing new controllers for ABC1, 2 and 3, as well as a head of multi-platform and new genre heads.

The new model will help bring a sharper focus to each channel’s output, says ABC TV director of television Kim Dalton. In a “more competitive environment for chasing audiences”, Dalton says, the ABC and its channels have to “stay true to our charter as a public broadcaster by providing quality and intelligent programming”.

Local content, he says, is “serious and important” for the multi-channels and ABC2 will soon start commissioning programming that is riskier than what airs on ABC1.

New government funds for production also mean that the ABC is again a major player in commissioning drama, the bulk of which will be in 13-part series and high-volume

mini-series.

“By the end of next year we will be back at the same level of production as the commercial broadcasters, which is where we should be,” Dalton says.

SBS, the hybrid commercial-public multi-cultural broadcaster, is finding the introduction of the niche multi-channels challenging, because suddenly they are playing in similar markets to those that SBS has long occupied.

SBS director of content Matt Campbell says: “For years I was happy to shop in a boutique but now Nine, Seven and Ten programmers are shopping in the same boutique. I wish they’d head back to their supermarkets. “It’s an exciting time, but tough and competitive. You do have to be creative.”

That includes an increased focus on the core programming strengths in the genres of “food, football, factual and world film”.

At the same time, Campbell says: “We like to think that what we do is distinctive and different. Give Channel Seven and us the same format and they’d be very different shows.”

The multi-channel free-to-air universe is also causing the pay-TV business to look at its programming strategy and focus consumers on its technology leadership.

Foxtel director of television Brian Walsh says the pay sector’s response

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has to be to “push the envelope on creativity”. He adds: “What we can do is distinguish our offering.”

That includes dramas such as its edgy police series East West 101, going into its third season, and top-rating food shows such as Food Safari.

While there has been a small drift back to the terrestrial channels, pay-TV audiences are also up overall this year, according to OzTAM ratings data, but the pay sector is starting to hurt at the subscriber level. Subscriptions have levelled out at 33% penetration, or 2.2 million households.

The standout success for the sector, however, is the penetration and use of the Foxtel iQ personal video recorder, the iQ2 high-definition box, and its regional counterpart, the Austar MyStar box. Some 65% of Foxtel customers now have an iQ and its use has been “transformational”, with ratings growing rapidly for time-shifted viewing.

Its technology focus will increase with the impending launch of true on-demand programming, a cutdown offering of key Foxtel channels streamed through Microsoft’s Xbox, the introduction of more high-definition channels and the pay net’s record-breaking sixchannel coverage of the Delhi Commonwealth Games.

With pay channels increasing profitability, the platforms are

commissioning bigger formats with “more marketing clout” as exclusive programming.

“We are being more selective — our mantra is fewer, bigger, better,” Walsh says, noting that one of pay TV’s most successful outlets, The Lifestyle Channel, this year launched “big-ticket shows like Grand Designs Australia, Selling Houses Australia, Come Dine With Me Australia, and is casting for Relocation, Relocation Australia”, noting that the business model for the sector did not provide for doing those shows four or five years ago.

Walsh recently announced that Foxtel’s in-house channels have also commissioned some big-ticket formats for next year. Alongside a seventh season of Australia’s Next Top Model, pay TV’s most successful non-sports programme, Walsh has commissioned Shine format Got To Dance Australia. Shine will also make Dating In The Dark Australia, Cricket Superstar and locally developed multi-platform drama Slide, which will be online for six weeks before its TV debut late next year. Drama, too, will have to continue to be “distinctive, provocative and fresh”. Walsh acknowledges that currently the free-to-air broadcasters “are doing serial drama very well” and there are “lots of opportunities for new ideas to get carriage”.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: DIGITAL

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

TV tunes in to a digital economy

New ways of seeing: the Telstra T-box; and iView on TV and iPad

Digital television has proved to be an instant success with Australian viewers.

But with a national broadband network due to roll out, they ain’t seen nothing yet, Natalie Apostolou reports

T

HE Australian media and communications industries have been gripped by the D-word over the last year. Swept up by the move to digital TV and the launch of a raft of new digital, free-to-air channels, the advent of competitive IPTV services and the promise of a A$43bn ($41bn) national broadband infrastructure, the media sector has been forced to embrace a digital future at warp speed.

With more than 74% of Australian households now receiving digital TV, industry and consumers are starting to get a real taste of viewing in a multi-channel environment.

The digital switchover, which started

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in late 2008, has enabled each FTA broadcaster to add two new HD multi-channel services, or up to six when HDTV is not being transmitted. To hasten the pace of change Australian FTA broadcasters received a A$250m digital sweetener from the government early this year with the announcement that it would cut network licensing fees by 33% in 2010 and 50% in 2011.

While the move has had a positive impact on broadcasters’ share prices it also allowed them to accelerate the roll out of their multi-channel strategies.

In 2010 alone, four new channels have been announced or launched: ABC News 24, 7mate, Eleven — a

Network Ten and CBS JV — and Nine Network’s Gem. They join Network Ten’s HD channel One, SBS Two, GO! (Nine Network), 7Two and ABC3, which were launched in 2009.

While the effect of this barrage of new content targeted at distinct niche demographic markets will not be truly felt until the digital switchover is complete, early indicators suggest the shake — up is working.

The latest OzTAM data revealed that prime-time TV viewing has risen by 3%, and the elusive 16- to 39-yearold set has come back to TV, with its viewing up 7%. Significantly, these Gen Ys and Xs, who are more likely

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Plug into

STUART MENZIES Controller ABC2

the new ABC NATALIE EDGAR Deputy Controller ABC1 and 2

KIM DALTON Director of Television

BRENDAN DAHILL Controller ABC1

abc.net.au/tv/aboutus

TIM BROOKE-HUNT Controller Childrens

ARUL BASKARAN Controller Multiplatform

We have a whole new team so start the entertainment conversation now.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: DIGITAL

Freeview’s Kim Dalton: “The power of television to deliver news and information … remains pre-eminent”

Network Ten’s Nick Spooner: “For audiences this means building bigger, better and more interactive sites”

FetchTV’s Scott Lorson: “There has never been a better time to target consumers who have yet to switch to digital”

to be online than in front of a TV, are getting hooked on the new digital channels. Capturing that digitally wayward but lucrative demographic is key to the broadcasters’ multichannel strategies.

Network Ten’s chief digital media officer, Nick Spooner, says that the priority across their channels — Ten, One and Eleven — is to continue building levels of viewer and advertiser engagement with programmes across to an online environment.

“For audiences this means building bigger, better and more interactive sites, while for clients it means giving them more opportunities to integrate their campaigns across a broadcast and online environment,” he says.

The latest offering, Eleven, targeting that 13-39 demographic and slated to begin broadcasting early next year, will open the door to increasing multi-platform opportunities, “with a key focus on community and social engagement in line with its audience profile”.

As Australians lead the world in social-media usage, it is no surprise that Australian broadcasters and production companies are desperately trying to integrate that engagement into viewing patterns.

MasterChef Australia changed the rules with explosive social media impact — more than 250,000 fans by the end of the season and over 9,500 followers on Twitter.

“We see social networking as just one way in which we can maintain the conversation about a programme,” Spooner says.

Network Ten, which broadcasts the show, has a rich pedigree in migrating viewers on to an online community platform, stretching back to its days with the Big Brother format.

In recent times, the broadcaster uses the emerging mediums to gauge sentiment about a storyline or a programme.

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“Because we have been fully digital for a long time, it is easy for us to repurpose our content for social media. We see this evolving over time, providing an opportunity to extend engagement and involvement for our audience and extending storylines and production avenues for both our broadcast and digital businesses,” Spooner adds.

On the production side, Shine Australia CEO Mark Fennessy points out: “As there is no one singular model which can be applied to social media, so it's important for content producers like Shine to recognise that the rules which previously applied to producing content for television aren't relevant in the online world.”

“

It is easy for us

to repurpose our content for social media Nick Spooner

”

Developing content and formats which genuinely connect with these communities in more than a superficial way is a high priority for Shine, which entered the Australian market early this year.

“We're embracing these platforms in partnership with the broadcasters through TV programme websites like Junior MasterChef Online, and we're working with online players including YouTube and Facebook at building new brands in the digital space.”

Complementary online, social and mobile content are fast being accepted as the norm in extending and further engaging audiences from the primary broadcast experience.

One of the most progressive players in the digitisation of Australian TV

has been public broadcaster the ABC. The head of ABC TV and chairman of Freeview, Kim Dalton is acutely aware of the audience fractures, threats to national content boundaries and stress placed on business models that the new digital order is placing on the industry.

Yet he maintains: “The power of television to deliver news and information, narratives and entertainment, and to engage with audiences, remains pre-eminent.

The challenge for free-to-air broadcasters, in Australia and elsewhere, is to work with these changes, to focus on and continue to do what we have always done well, but to recognise that digital technology now allows us to do so much more.”

Leading by example, the ABC launched Australia’s first catch-up TV broadband service, iView, 18 months ago. Meanwhile, the Seven network has partnered with TiVo, and it’s JV Yahoo!7 recently announced partnerships with Sony and Panasonic to deliver content straight to internet-enabled TVs. Nine, Ten and SBS all have versions of web-based video download catch-up TV services.

“Since the iView launched, the proprietary video player has become a brand and synonymous with the delivery of TV content,” Dalton says.

In August it clocked more than 2.3 million views, with 8-10% usage coming from non-PC devices.

The service will be a precursor to the type of experience viewers will have with the launch of the A$43bn highspeed National Broadband Network (NBN), scheduled to be deployed over the next five years.

“As the NBN develops, we are well positioned to be part of that and delivering TV content on new and emerging platforms enabled by the NBN,” Dalton adds.

The advent of the NBN will affect the way content is delivered, how it’s

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: DIGITAL

monetised and regulated. For FTA broadcasters it signals the fundamental shift in the way Australians will consume TV. For savvy technology providers and carriers, it opens the path to capturing an audience who will be won with the best and most ubiquitous content and delivery platform.

Duelling for IPTV dominance in the lead-up to NBN deployment are new entrants white-label IPTV service provider FetchTV, backed by Ananda Krishna’s Astro Group, and dominant telecommunications carrier Telstra.

In the last quarter, both have launched into the market, FetchTV providing an avenue for ISPs to enter the content market by offering their existing broadband customers a service that bundles a digital tuner, PVR, video on demand and online interactivity into a set-top box.

While Telstra has been active in the online and mobile media space, the T-Box is its first major product push

into the living room and home entertainment. “Telstra is well positioned now to deliver media services to our customers across multiple screens and in multiple contexts and locations. This will also be a major point of leverage in the longer term,” says Telstra’s Media general manager, content acquisitions and strategic partnerships, Andrew Lambert.

Due to Australia’ s lower penetration rates for subscription TV services compared with other developed markets, both players see strong potential for the IPTV and subscription market to grow.

“The immediate impact will be on the potential reach of households, including unlocking a large segment of the market that has previously been unable to receive TV services because they have not been able to access by satellite or cable, for example residents of dense unit complexes,” Lambert says.

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“

The rules which

previously applied to producing for television aren't relevant in the online world Mark Fennessy

”

The turf will be fiercely competitive, Telstra claims it will be competing on a number of levels — through the customer experience by investing heavily in its own internet content delivery network, seeking quality movie and TV programming and sports rights, and by promoting compelling offers bundled with broadband and telephony services.

As a wholesaler, FetchTV will be competing on delivering compelling content and interactive services at a very affordable price for ISPs to serve to their customers. “We are solving an issue that ISP’s have had in helping them compete, by offering as a technology partner, access to premium content, reduced risk, scale and speed to market,” says FetchTV CEO Scott Lorson.

He adds that there has never been a better time to target consumers who have yet to switch to digital or the 70% of the population who have elected to not take up a pay-TV service.

“The rapid rate of technology innovation is facilitating the introduction of new services and competitors, and we are now seeing dramatic shifts in consumer behaviours. The introduction of the NBN, expansion of free-to-air digital channels, and continued improvements in mobile services will accelerate these shifts," Lorson adds.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: INNOVATION

G O I N G C R O S S - P L AT F O R M

The new high flyers Fragmenting viewers? Waning advertisers? In Australia, anything from a whale to a dog handler can inspire fresh thinking. Natalie Apostolou talks to content innovators who have gone direct to the eyeballs with rewarding results

W

Oprah Winfrey and crew head for Australia: a brandedcontent dream come true

HEN Oprah Winfrey announced that she will be placing her crew, 300 loyal fans and a fleet of Motorola handsets on a Qantas jet headed for Australia in December to film live episodes of Oprah at Sydney’s Opera House, it appeared to be a branded-content dream come true.

For Tourism Australia and its A$1.5m ($1.4m) investment and associated sponsors it will put Australia on an experiential stage like never before.

For local broadcaster Network Ten and Oprah’s production company, Harpo, it not only extends the Oprah brand but also gives audiences both

locally and internationally an immersive content experience that shakes up the idea of passive viewing. For Motorola, which launched its newest smart phone last month on Oprah in the US, the exposure goes from local to global. Everyone, it seem, is a winner. So is this mash-up of live, experiential, branded and social a signpost of things to come? In Australia it’s already here.

For broadcasters tussling with fragmenting audiences and the problem of increasingly accessible free online content, a little blue whale has helped turn the tide. Beached Az, a

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: INNOVATION

The creators of Beached Az: Jarod Green (left), Nick Boshier and (bottom centre) Anthony MacFarlane

Beached Az, a three-minute short film featuring a badly animated stranded whale

three-minute short film featuring a badly animated stranded whale with a highly contagious New Zealand accent, debuted on YouTube in April 2008. Three months later it had one million hits. Somewhere between Australia, America and Antarctica, the whale went viral.

For its creators, Jarod Green, Nick Boshier and Anthony MacFarlane, the success of the cool experimental animation they filmed in their bedrooms for a budget of A$16, blew them away.

As children of the social-media revolution, they didn’t miss a beat. With a bit of subtle seeding, placement on high-traffic blogs such as The Flight Of The Concords and 100,000 Facebook friends, they quickly turned fans into a community — a lucrative community at that, supporting them by buying “tens of thousands of dollars” per month in merchandise.

“The skewed demographic appeal of the series, both attractive to kids and appealing to adults, mocking Australia versus NZ rivalry, operates on a lot of different levels. It became a perfect little piece of content and

we nailed it on one three-minute animation,” Green says.

The trio, with no retail or merchandising experience, inked a licensing deal with high street clothing store Supre, which sold 80,000 T-shirts during the summer of 2009.

By then the whale clip had attracted four million YouTube views and Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, took notice. The creators secured a series deal for online, television and mobile that is now in its second season and has attracted international sales. The ABC was keen to exploit the cross-platform audience and retained the one- to two-minute-per-episode format of “snackable media”. It has also spawned a whole range of merchandising sold through the ABC’s commercial arm and a DVD is out for Christmas.

“Our view is ‘let’s get this big strong online community, galvanise them and bring that audience to the television’, and it worked really well,” Green says.

It quickly became the ABC’s biggest online property, with 700,000 viewers watching the one-minute spots.

As an interstitial it has been able to live online. The rollout was quite different at the time; even though it was on TV it was also coming out online at the same time. We kept the YouTube presence, broadcasting new TV episodes online the next day, so it could be shared as quickly as possible,” says

“

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Our view is ‘let’s get this big strong

online community, galvanise them and bring that audience to the television’, and it worked Jarod Green

”

Kath Earle, ABC’s executive producer, arts, entertainment and comedy.

The original clip has now got close to six million views on YouTube, and is a popular iPhone app and ringtone.

The experience taught the broadcaster and the industry some important lessons about the power of the content and allowing audiences to consume it any way they wanted, which does not always mean that giving it away for free precludes a high revenue return.

When producer Marcus Gillezeau crafted his idea to film surfing kings Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones scaling some of the Australia’s most intense waves in extreme weather conditions, he knew the journey might be costly.

Already armed with an equipment sponsorship deal with Sony as a brand ambassador, he went straight to the names that resonate with the surfing audience directly: Quicksilver and Red Bull. He not only managed to secure financing but also a distribution model which would connect and engage with audiences digitally, even before a traditional broadcast.

In the case of the sequel shot in New Zealand, Tourism NZ came on board and Gillezeau was able to supply a content package that the agency could use to showcase the country internationally.

“Our philosophy as a production company is to raise as much pre-sale finance as possible from online, mobile and ancillary rights as early as possible,” Gillezeau says.

Bringing additional revenue to the mix, Gillezeau formed a partnership with agency RedLever, part of the network Adconian, which specialises in streaming video-based advertising for online and mobile. The partnership has secured advertising relationships with Vodafone among others.

Red Lever delivers Storm Surfers content from Discovery Channel on animated banners which display up

Storm Surfers: happy association with Vodafone

to six videos, including links to iPhone and iPad apps, and information on the characters, the story and links to Vodafone. Storm Surfers follows two-time world champion Tom Carroll and big wave tow-in pioneer Ross Clarke-Jones as they hunt down and ride the world’s biggest waves.

For the brands it provides unique, compelling content in a bite-sized package that they can distribute across the web, mobile and apps.

For Gillezeau the relationship works because “the Storm Surfers brand is out there and getting that exposure promotes and the sale of ancillary content. For Vodafone, they are happy to be associated with quality content and they get their brand out there.”

The team is also developing a multiplayer game and console game in addition to a 30-part web series.

Gillezeau is taking the same model to market to raise capital for Storm Surfers - The Movie 3D, which is intended for a theatrical release and TV in 3D. “Because of these relationships we are taking to market a property that is not just a movie, but a brand.”

For a company well versed in the art of rock and the role of promoting and touring musicians internationally, Chugg Entertainment’s move into the TV arena is as left field as it is astute. As one of Australia’s most successful and iconic fixtures in the music industry, the Chugg group has been diversifying its entertainment mix for the past few years, taking on more live theatrical performances and events such as Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert - The Musical. But it wasn’t until Tara King, the director of TV touring, saw the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, perform in Atlanta that the idea for a new division was born.

“When I saw Cesar Milan I knew it would translate into a great live arena

228_QUAIL_SP_COM__ 24/09/10 20:48 Page1

Leading Australian factual and documentary maker Quail Television is expanding...

Noted writer/show creator Rick Kalowski is the newly appointed Creative Director - Scripted and Light Entertainment, producing and developing original and existing formats in comedy, drama, light entertainment and feature film.

Quail TV now includes brand funded content creation business, Quail Content, a joint venture between Quail and media exec Kate Edwards.

Already the business has provided solutions for global brands Bacardi, Volkswagen, Xbox and Dell.

In 2011, ultra long-distance runner, Pat Farmer, will run from the North Pole to the South Pole. Pat starts in March and must run two marathons every day for 10 months to reach the South Pole before winter.

Quail TV will provide live-via-satellite television coverage of every step of Pat’s incredible expedition; across the Arctic, over North and Central America, through the jungles of the Darian Gap, through South America and across the Antarctic to the South Pole.

Pat is running to draw attention to the clean water crisis in developing countries and aims to raise $100 million dollars in public donations to be used by the International Red Cross to build wells.

Australia’s Nine Network has acquired exclusive Australian rights to televise Pat Farmer’s pole2pole run.

Quail Television offers exclusive content packages for media partners in all territories.

For expressions of interest please contact Greg Quail at greg@quail.tv or +61 418 457 247

More information visit www.quail.tv www.quailcontent.com

Greg Quail Rick Kalowski Kate Edwards

greg@quail.tv rick@quail.tv kate@quail.tv

QUAIL TV

Oz10_13-Oz 2 Revenue Streams+D+J_. 29/09/10 17:46 Page3

SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: INNOVATION

“

Our philosophy as a

production company is to raise as much pre-sale finance as possible from online, mobile and ancillary rights as early as possible Marcus Gillezeau

”

show,” King says. She promptly worked on developing an arena-style live production, touring the UK. The tour sold out, with 54,000 tickets sold and per-head merchandising revenue eclipsing that of Lady Gaga and Coldplay.

“The success of his tour in the UK made us realise just how mainstream

these TV brands are, even though they are often considered niche. And their very loyal audience want to see them in a live environment,” King says.

Matthew Lazarus Hall, managing director, Chugg Entertainment, says the fundamentals of what the Chugg group does as a touring company — connecting artists with their audience and logistics specialists — is the key to translating a good TV concept to the live arena. “What we are now seeing is audiences which are so engaged in the TV content that when we transform that into a live experience, they are amazed at how powerful that can be. People enjoy live experiences and the joy of the live experience is in its imperfection,” he says.

The unedited and often unscripted nature of live performances is striking a chord with audiences who are now used to a TV programme enjoying a life outside of its designated time slot.

Extended online content including behind-the-scenes and outtakes,

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mobile apps and social-media discourse have all whetted the appetite for content-hungry TV show fans.

Lazarus Hall sees it as a natural progression to extend that experience into the live arena. “People are social animals and they like to be in a room with that energy. Experiencing that content live makes the brand more powerful.” King adds that while many TV properties are focusing on mobile or other online content plays to extend their brand and content, “we have seized on a traditional mode of engaging with an audience and created a new way of getting revenue”.

Lazarus Hall says that while every project is different there is a commonality in that the live production creates more of an extended life cycle for the TV show concept. “Unlike music touring, which is at the mercy of a fickle audience, taking a TV concept on tour is about developing IP and content with a longer life cycle

and engaging audiences.”

The group does not restrict itself to big stadium shows and is exploring different live formats to suit TV content, be it a festival or exhibition environment. It is also flexible, with the financial model to suit the client with structures ranging from joint ventures, royalty fee, revenue shares and a simple production management fee.

“Our approach is never to change the landscape — we work hand in glove with the broadcaster or production company. It is all about servicing an integrated product,” Lazarus Hall says. The TV Touring division is currently working with a diverse range of TV content producers both in Australia and internationally.

The social media impact of MasterChef in Australia took even producers by surprise, with 260,000 Facebook fans and finale shows trending in the top five globally on Twitter.

On the MasterChef website's catchup video service, viewing rose by

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: INNOVATION

44% this year to 13.1 million hits.

The website, maintained by producer FremantleMedia and powered

by Kit Digital saw page views up 32% on last year at 48 million.

For FremantleMedia, the MasterChef franchise which is now estimated to be worth over A$100m when merchandising and publications are thrown into the mix, the experience is an example of building a cross-platform audience that will live 12 months of the year.

“We are really looking at exploiting that with The X Factor. MasterChef was a one-way conversation — not much interaction between audience and TV show. With The X Factor we are harnessing the two-way element,” FremantleMedia head of digital media Tom Maynard says.

The show, which was launched in Australia in August, is aiming to integrate social networking buzz and traffic around the show by feeding it into a spin-off event after the broad-

“

If they are watching

The Chugg team: Tara King (left), Michael Chugg and Matthew Lazarus Hall

it, they are tweeting and texting or on Facebook, they want to do it at the time they are watching

cast. In the spin-off, called the Extra Factor, judges and contestants field questions from Twitter and other social networking sites. “As platforms are blurring, the programme needs to be able to talk back to the audience now,” Maynard says.

Jon Penn, CEO, Asia Pacific, at distributor FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), adds: “The X Factor is the first big new franchise that has emerged in the era of social media. In the last six months have we seen the urgency to be part of the social media space.”

Social media have forced produc-

tion companies and broadcasters to rethink audience engagement and opportunities for brand extension.

Penn says that digitally it is no longer about pulling the audience to an official site but going out and reaching viewers where they are.

“We have to go where the audiences are because they have fragmented away from where the broadcast is. If they are watching it live, they are tweeting and texting or on Facebook, they want to do it at the time they are watching,” Penn says.

As such, reality TV — like the live

Jon Penn

”

show experience — may be the last frontiers where digital re-distribution does not erode the TV viewing audience. Maynard adds: “I don’t think the reality format really works within the iTunes services or VOD. These ‘shiny floor formats’ work live because of their communal nature and the viral buzz they create, but when they are put on one day later they lose their lustre, it does not cannibalise the audience at all.”

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: CHILDRENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PROGRAMMING

A GROWTH SPURT

Kids content picks up speed Two new channels have helped boost childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entertainment content on Australian television, but for local producers the international know-how that allows a programme to travel is still essential, reports Pip Bulbeck

A

S AUSSIE entertainers The Wiggles get ready to celebrate 20 years in the business next year, there is a raft of new entertainers and producers ready to replicate their success, fuelled by an explosion

of kids TV channels in Australia and a vibrant and creative kids production sector.

The launches of digital channel ABC3, aimed at eight- to 14-yearolds and international channel Kids

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Co, and an increase in the amount of pre-school programming on ABC2 have seen the number of hours of kids-dedicated TV airing jump to 1,770 a week in the past 12 months.

At the same time, Australian producers continue to build audiences and awards worldwide for their programming.

But, despite the proliferation of outlets, it is still the commercial

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING

DirtGirlWorld, created by Cate McQuillen, Hewey Eustace, and Decode Entertainment

broadcasters' quota system which underpins kids’ drama production — both live action and animation — in Australia.

The value of kids TV drama production in Australia in 2009 was around A$103m ($97.5m) in the last fiscal year, according to Screen Australia's annual national production survey. That was across 15 titles covering 161 hours

of television. And production capacity is building in a range of genres and formats, including reality series, documentaries, game shows and sitcoms. That is largely thanks to ABC3, which now counts over 45% local content on the channel and is commissioning outside the traditional live-action and animated-drama programmes.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING

The Wiggles get ready to celebrate 20 years in the business next year

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Local adaptations of shows such as Prank Patrol and Escape From Scorpion Island on ABC3, as well as

Nickelodeon local reality show Camp Orange, have proved hugely popular, while Junior MasterChef — aimed at families rather than directly at kids — is one of the top-rating series on Australian television this year.

While most in the sector agree that the content quotas, specifying 32 hours per year of first-run children's drama on the commercial networks, have underpinned production for many years, its also recognised that the bulk of kids’ programmes cannot be made without a foreign coproduction partner.

“Despite the new channels and platforms worldwide, money is tight and people are paying less. There’s less money from all sources,” says Suzanne Ryan, principal of SLR Productions, whose kids series Guess How Much I Love You has just been greenlit.

As a result, Ryan says, there is a growing reliance on co-productions, particularly in animations, and the bulk of the money is coming out of countries with subsidies.

Most co-productions are being done with Canada, France and Ireland.

Cate McQuillen, coproducer of animated eco-hit DirtGirlWorld, agrees.

DirtGirlWorld, created

by McQuillen and partner Hewey Eustace, is an official co-production with Canada’s Decode Entertainment, which was drawn to their “kooky, quirky and edgy but mainstream” idea of a gumbootwearing girl who grows awesome tomatoes, knows cloud names and drives a big orange tractor.

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING

“

We are still growing

in all directions. Our approach is about building content and making it media neutral, working across all platforms and working globally Mike Conway

”

It currently screens as one of the top-ratings kids programmes on the ABC in Australia, CBC in Canada, the BBC and in the US on Sprout.

“As first-time producers we wanted to do everything, but having a partner like Decode was vital. We did all the design and creative, they did the animation and post, we could leverage our offset and they provided lots of wisdom and business expertise,” McQuillen says.

Holding on to their intellectual property as the brand expands beyond a TV show, is also important for McQuillen and Eustace.

McQuillan says DirtGirlWorld was envisaged as a transmedia property, with TV just one part of the product line. Brand extensions planned include a DVD, club-style website, online store and live character appearances at gardening expos, to connect with kids face to face. That licensing and merchandising, however, needs a steady hand, McQuillen says.

Indeed, McQuillen and Eustace specify how sustainable the merchandising and all material are, “otherwise it would end up as landfill and be a disservice to DirtGirlWorld and her friends”.

McQuillen and Eustace are just the latest Australian producers to have made careers, and an industry, of exporting and exploiting their content.

Citing shows from producers such as Jonathan M Shiff Productions, the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, Yoram Gross, the creator of Blinky Bill, as well as programmes such as The Saddle Club, Ryan says: “The reputation we have and the quality programmes we produce is outstanding.”

ABC head of children’s television, Tim Brooke-Hunt agrees. Jonathan M Shiff, who has made successful liveaction series such as Elephant Princess and H2O: Just Add Water has “really succeeded in building a successful relationship with a small coterie of investors”, Brooke-Hunt says.

They include German broadcaster ZDF and its sales arm, ZDF Enterprises, which have partnered with Shiff on several of his productions, including his latest, alien adventure series Lightning Point.

ZDF has now branched out and is co-producing tween live-action series Dance Academy with the ABC and is set to announce its first adult drama investment with an Australian broadcaster, namely SBS. Brooke-Hunt adds that the groundbreaking success of The Wiggles and others such as Hi5 and the ABC’s Bananas In Pyjamas, has created a path for the next generation of producers.

“What’s common to these programmes is that they were made by people who were very committed to providing high-quality programming and were willing to do things that are very Australian. They also recognised that there’s a life beyond TV,” he says.

But it is The Wiggles’ longevity and ability to build keep building on their success, from live shows to TV series, DVD and CD sales, and now a range of digital products, that sin-

ACTF - A FORCE FOR GOOD THE AUSTRALIAN Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) is a national non-profit organisation. It is committed to providing Australian children with entertaining media made especially for them, which aims to make an enduring contribution to their cultural and educational experience.The ACTF acts as a funding body for other children’s television producers, as well as Double Trouble (ACTF) a local and international distributor of children’s programmes. It facilitates the application of its television series in classrooms, and actively engages in debate on issues concerning Australian children’s programme content.

New from the ACTF is Double Trouble, featuring sixteen year old Yuma who lives with her wealthy father and step family in Sydney.

Kyanna, also 16, lives in a community in the central Australian desert with her mother and extended family.

Separated at birth, these twin girls are completely unaware that the other exists, until a twist of fate sees them bump into each other in Alice Springs. When the pair discover their connection, and decide they want to meet the parent they don’t know, they agree to swap lives, just for a day. Little do they know the trouble they will find themselves in as things go wrong and each is stranded in the other’s world. That’s when the fun starts.

The 13 x 24 mins series is produced by CAAMA productions.

gle them out as Australia’s top entertainment export.

The programme was named the Australian exporter of the year in 2005, and it regularly tops local business magazine BRW’s rich entertainers list, with the magazine estimating average annual earning of A$50m. In 2009 it slipped from first on the list to third with A$45m in earnings, sitting behind AC/DC and Kylie Minogue,.

The Wiggles’ managing director, Mike Conway, says the group has, with “some fantastic partners,” been able to take advantage of different market conditions along the way. At the same time, "we learn and progress".

Created initially as a live act, its first foray into exporting over 12 years ago, came as people overseas heard about the characters and sought CDs and DVDs. Working with partners such as Lyrick, Disney, the ABC, Sprout and

KidsCo has helped create an understanding of what each local market wants, with shows and products supplied in English or dubbed into the local language.

While The Wiggles’ heritage is firmly in the live shows, and the group's touring commitments will increase in key markets globally in the next 12 months, TV has fuelled the demand for consumer products. That demand has now evolved into digital media. The group recently launched its own iPhone apps, Sony will release Singstar: Wiggles next month, while Ubisoft is making a Wiggles Dance game for the Wii console.

The group is also working on an online education enrichment programme for educators.

“We are still growing in all directions,” Conway says. “Our approach is about building content and making it media neutral, working across all platforms and working globally.”

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: PRODUCTION

SHOOTING IN OZ

The many reasons why you should film in Australia I

T IS NOT a common thing, for major US television series to be filmed in Australia. When the producers of the 13 x one-hour science fiction adventure Terra Nova chose Queensland as their location, it had been more than two years since filming wrapped on the last highprofile big-budget series, the 10-part World War II story The Pacific. "[Executive producer] Steven Spielberg feels that at the particular time when the show is set, which is when dinosaurs walked the earth, the terrain has to look tropical and exotic and, for filming purposes, has to have a consistent look year-round in terms of foliage and vegetation," said Jim Sharp, executive vice-president of production at Twentieth

Century Fox Television, before cameras rolled. Fox is working alongside DreamWorks TV, Kapital Entertainment and Chernin Entertainment.

"Queensland has all that and more, including elevation, waterfalls, mountains, everything we were looking for. We looked at many locations both inside and outside the continental United States."

The family at the heart of the series encounter dinosaurs when they leave an over-developed, over-crowded and over-polluted Earth in the year 2149 and travel back in time to join a new settlement to make a fresh start — and possibly to change the future by correcting the mistakes of the past.

Queensland, in Australia's northeast corner, is often referred to as the

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sunshine state, and is often sought out for its easily accessible jungle environments and idyllic palm-fringed beaches. It has doubled for Mexico and The Bahamas for features The Ruins and Fool's Gold, respectively, and for Miami in the mini-series The Starter Wife.

Alex Gravas, who has won two Emmy Awards as part of the production team on The West Wing, was set to direct the pilot episode of Terra Nova and the imports also included a producing director, production designer, cinematographer, costume person, and line producer. Most of the rest of the crew were Australian.

Sharp made clear that he was not entirely free of nerves before pro-

duction began. "Australia is nearly a day ahead of us in terms of time zones. Transporting people from the US to Australia will be expensive and time consuming,” he says. “This is also the first primetime television show the Queensland production community has shot, so there may be a learning curve there — we shoot faster and work through more pages per day than the feature films they’ve shot in the past.

"But ... this will break new ground and pave the way for Australia to attract more US television production.

It’s an opportunity for them, just as much as it is for us, to see if this can work. Everyone’s really excited."

Sharp confirmed that he was hoping to take advantage of both Australian

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SPOTLIGHT ON AUSTRALIA: PRODUCTION

Fox Studios in Sydney, capital of New South Wales and Australia's biggest city.

Many worldwide film service brands, including Panavision and Deluxe, are in Australia, plus there are significant locally-owned entities including digital effects companies Rising Sun and Animal Logic, and the Omnilab Group, which runs a slew of post-production operations.

Port Douglas, tropical north Queensland.

Photo courtesy Tourism Australia

The strong Australian dollar has made it hard to attract foreign production into the country in recent times. But currency exchange problems are being solved by incentive packages. And of course, as Sandy George reports, it’s not all about the money

and Queensland Government production incentives, claimable upon completion. "A show this ambitious is going to be expensive to shoot, and these financial incentive programmes allow us to really make the show our creators have in mind."

International production levels have plummeted in Australia despite the 15% Location Offset, a nationwide rebate in place for international production (see panel). Most noticeably absent are the big-budget films that Australia has always focused on.

"It remains a very challenging environment for all manner of production because of the high exchange rate and competitor territories offering ever-higher in-

centives," said Jackie O'Sullivan, chief executive of Ausfilm, a partnership of private and government interests that markets Australia's incentives, locations and capabilities worldwide.

"It requires a co-operative effort from a range of stakeholders at a federal, state and industry level to get a TV series over the line," she says. "State-based incentives certainly can lessen the impact of the high exchange rate."

Providing Australia can meet the location and studio requirements, the willingness of service and facilities companies to offer good deals is also crucial to the numbers adding up.

Lynn Benzie, long-time president of Village Roadshow Studios in Queensland's south-east corner, said

she is discounting at a rate she has not done before.

"We all have to work together," said Benzie, who signed over production offices and soundstages Seven and Eight to Terra Nova. "I need support from everyone across the board."

The Pacific and films such as The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, Where The Wild Things Are and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, have proven that Australia has the cast, crew, services and facilities to support international production. Each was filmed on the populous east coast with one of the country's three major studios as the production base. Besides Village Roadshow there is Melbourne Central City Studios in Victoria, and

With the challenge of finding production finance for local projects, many experienced local producers are developing official co-productions and seeking out international partners to work with on them. Official co-productions appeal because they are automatically eligible for the 20% rebate available for local television (see panel) without having to pass an Australian content test.

Despite its long history of being preoccupied with international production, Ausfilm has readjusted its gaze to incorporate co-production. Screen Australia will also tout co-productions as part of MIPCOM's Spotlight On Australia on Tuesday, October 5.

"We are going to formally launch our new co-production guidelines, which offer more flexibility ... and promote Australia as very keen on doing business with international filmmakers and engaging international audiences," says Fiona Cameron, executive director of strategy and operations.

While Screen Australia can invest directly in co-production — another advantage to using one of the coproduction treaties — it is having trouble stretching its A$20m per year for adult and children's drama and A$15m for documentary, and is reviewing its television activities.

Up to six television dramas are made in Australia each year as official international co-productions,

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SAFC’s Defrim Isai: “Economics drive the state agencies more than cultural concerns”

many for children. The UK, Canada and France are popular partners but there are also arrangements with Italy, Ireland, Israel, Singapore, China, New Zealand, Germany and South Africa. Negotiations continue with Denmark, India and Malaysia.

For international producers, it is a two-way street: the live-action children's comedy series Me And My Monsters is an official UK-Australia co-production being filmed in Sydney for the UK's CBBC, Germany's ZDF and Australia's Network Ten and Nickelodeon, but it was instigated by the UK. "Tiger Aspect had been developing it for some time and had been looking at all types of production scenarios," says Pete Coogan from the UK's Baker Coogan Productions, which is producing the series for Tiger Aspect, The Jim Henson Company and Australia's Sticky Pictures. "My business partner Martin Baker and I had an existing relation-

ship with Australia and both loved living here and thought we should look at it as an option.

"There is a fantastic can-do attitude and people greatly encourage each other and want to contribute and collaborate. The directors and crews are some of the finest I have worked with ... people are not afraid to make mistakes, and that is not a bad thing."

Only a very small contingent flew into Australia for production including Martin Dennis, who directed the first four half-hour episodes but left the other 22 to Australians, and Don Austen, one of the six puppeteers.

The puppets were built in the UK and the music will be produced there too, but all filming happened at Fox Studios Australia. Post-production will continue in Australia until midDecember. Coogan lists a number of service companies he is enjoying working with, some of which are among the 60 or so independent film-related businesses on the lot,

Ausfilm’s Fiona Cameron: “Australia is very keen on doing business with international filmmakers"

Ausfilm’s Jackie O'Sullivan: “It remains a very challenging environment for all manner of production”

The Pacific — proof that Australia has the facilities to support international production

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and says that he is developing projects to film in Australia.

Me And My Monsters will receive rebates of up to 20% on all Australian production expenditure from the Australian Government, and further financial assistance through Investment and Industry NSW, although senior manager of film and creative industries, Sue McCreadie, would not disclose the exact amount.

In June, after Me And My Monsters got a green light, a further A$20m per year was set aside by the NSW Government to entice projects to film in NSW. At the time NSW Premier Kristina Keneally called it "an unprecedented commitment by an Australian state to secure large-scale, continuous film and TV production". Up until then, Industry & Investment NSW had a limited pot of money to play with.

"In general terms the incentives are provided as cash rebates, calculated

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as a percentage of the total production spend in NSW," said McCreadie, who works closely with NSW film agency ScreenNSW, and who will be at MIPCOM. "The incentive is assessed on a case-by-case basis using a range of criteria, including labour costs, the number of local cast and crew employed, regional locations used, new technology employed, whether post-production is undertaken in NSW and the direct economic benefit to the state."

It would be wrong not to mention Victoria in the same breath as Queensland and NSW, its main competitors. “I don’t think you can downplay the importance of Melbourne’s reputation as one of the world’s great cities and, in terms of servicing productions, it’s easy to get around, our studios are very close to the central business district, and Melbourne itself has doubled for Boston, Paris, London and New York," said Jenni Tosi, MIPCOM attendee and general manager of

HELLO, MONEYPENNY WHILE film commissions should be able to help producers through the rebate and incentives maze, there are other organisations that can do exactly that. Moneypenny — at MIPCOM this year — has been operating in Australia for 25 years and provides a range of financial services and on-the-ground presence to productions claiming the valuable tax incentives/rebates Australia has to offer.

Since the introduction of rebate schemes internationally, Moneypenny has successfully structured and claimed payouts in full for at least 25 feature films (mix of US studio, domestic and international co-productions), TV series and miniseries, with a combined qualifying spend of over A$1bn.

industry development and investment at Film Victoria.

"We’ve also got great regional locations, most within an hour’s drive of Melbourne ... Add to that our film-friendly local councils and world-leading online tools like the locations gallery and industry directory and you’ve got a fantastic package that really sets us apart.”

Each capital city has its own particular production characteristics.

Melbourne is the most European of Australia's cities and has a vibrant digital and cross-platform produc-

tion sector. In part because of their isolation from the rest of Australia, Perth producers on Australia's west coast have always looked outward, including to many key Asian centres in the same time zone. A strong documentary community has developed and a formal partnership with Singapore's Media Development Authority is in place.

Adelaide's South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) will be in a new home by mid-2011 and it will include two custom-built soundstages that are perfect for television. Nobody, ex-

Film Victoria’s Jenni Tosi: "We’ve got great regional locations, most within an hour’s drive of Melbourne”

Twentieth Century Fox Television’s Jim Sharp: "Queensland has … elevation, waterfalls, mountains, everything we were looking for"

Shooting the 10-part World War II story The Pacific in Queensland

Village Roadshow Studios’ Lynn Benzie: "We all have to work together"

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Tourism Australia’s Nick Baker: telling stories is the best way to entice international visitors to the country

Baker Coogan Productions’ Pete Coogan: "There is a fantastic can-do attitude and people greatly encourage each other”

cept perhaps NSW, has limitless cash to wave around, but the lower cost of living and ease of getting around the smaller states could suit some producers. Defrim Isai, Tosi's equivalent at the SAFC, says that economics drive the state agencies more than cultural concerns, giving them more flexibility when making expenditure decisions. He is leading a small delegation of people to MIPCOM that will include participants in a television mini-lab designed to build on the state's television skills. The states get excited about television when they remember how it keeps service companies busy and crews in work for long periods.

International producers can also seek production experience from Tourism Australia. Executive general manager of marketing Nick Baker believes telling stories is the best way to entice international visitors to the country. A Co-operative Broadcast Program exists to encourage the production of more Australian-themed content for international audiences by offering logistical and financial support to those that profile the country as a leisure destination.

"The best way to sell ourselves is through moving images and the best way of doing that is via third parties, advocacy and endorsement," Baker says. "It involves giving up control of the brand to some degree but it brings a lot of integrity, empathy and connection. There has been a massive proliferation of people searching for content. It is vital to get our message across."

Eligible productions include travel programmes, documentaries, short films and lifestyle shows that support "the core brand personality". While Baker does not rule out supporting global drama, he thinks it is challenging to make it fit. "We are not about to put a couple of million dollars into one programme," Baker says, adding that there is no cap. "It is more likely

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to be A$10,000 to A$20,000 across many projects ... (but) if the programme is right, there would be an opportunity to go beyond A$100,000, there is no doubt about that."

To be eligible, producers have to demonstrate they have free-to-air, paid or online television networks or alternative broadcast channels interested in, or intending to broadcast, the productions in at least three countries.

Applications are considered three times a year and, so far, three organisations have been supported. The next closing date is October 15.

Finally, an attribute that underpins Australia's attractiveness is that,

quite simply, it is a great place to live for a while. As O'Sullivan puts it: "Lifestyle factors can also play a part as foreign producers are often more than happy to spend the duration of a shoot in Australia, particularly over the summer months."

That was certainly the case for Coogan — and also his wife. Back in 1997, when he was planning his first long visit to Australia for the series Farscape he was surprised that his wife Jane, an identical twin, agreed to travel half way around the world with him because of her personal connection to home. In the end, when it was time to return 16 months later, she wanted to stay.

WHERE’S THE MONEY COMING FROM? The Location Offset

The Producer Offset

Producers of international film and television can claim back 15% of most of the Australian production expenditure as a tax rebate when they film in Australia, providing that expenditure amounts to A$15 million or more. Films, telemovies, miniseries and series, including reality shows, are eligible for the Federal Government's Location Offset and no national or cultural tests apply.

Applications are made to the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts upon completion of a production and the certificate provided then has to be submitted to the Australian Tax Office. There is no upper cap on claims.

The Federal Government supports Australian television through the Producer Offset, which allows producers to claim back up to 20% of all expenditure providing that expenditure is A$1 million or more. Official co-productions between Australia and its international partners under various treaties and other arrangements are automatically given Australian status and don't have to sit a content test. Co-productions are also eligible for direct subsidies from Screen Australia. The producer offset is set at 40% for Australian features.

The PDV Offset Producers who use Australia for post, digital and visual effects (PDV) work can claim back 15% of the cost providing the expenditure amounts to A$500,000 or more. It does not matter where filming took place. This PDV Offset was introduced in July 2007 — the Location Offset has been in place for many years — and the threshold was lowered from A$5 million three years later.

State Government A variety of financial incentives are available from most State Governments. Victoria has a Production Investment Attraction Fund and a Regional Location Assistance Fund, for example, although neither are as hefty as the new A$20 million fund in New South Wales.

Queensland is currently reviewing what it has to offer to make it more straightforward and the smaller states of Western Australia and South Australia also offer fiscal sweeteners.

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