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Just five days after the Federal Parliament passed laws requiring minimum investments in Australian content from large video streaming companies, it has been revealed that leading players spent $414 million on local productions in FY25 - a lift of 21 per cent.
The annual subscription video on demand (SVOD) investment report released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) shows an increase in spending despite an 11 per cent drop in the number of local productions supported at 4,500.
The data is based on voluntary reporting from major streamers Prime Video, Disney, Netflix and Stan which have been doing so since FY20, and Paramount+ which joined the initiative in FY22.
Late last week new laws were passed that from next year will require streaming services with more than one million Australian subscribers to invest at least 10 per cent of their total program expenditure for Australia - or 7.5 per cent of revenue - on new local drama, children's, documentary, arts and educational programs.
"We should never underestimate how important it is for Australians to see themselves on screen. It helps us to better understand ourselves, our neighbours better and allows the world to see us," Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke said at the time.
"We have Australian content requirements on Free to Air television and pay television, but until now, there has been no guarantee that we could see our own stories on streaming services.
"Streaming services create extraordinary shows, and this legislation ensures Australian voices are now front and centre. Now, no matter which remote control you’re holding, Australian stories will be at your fingertips."
The Streaming for Australia Coalition highlights that spending rose to almost $1.1 billion when including the $687.8 million spent on Australian-related programs.
"Contrary to misleading claims that SVOD services have been reducing investment in the Australian screen industry, the ACMA data clearly shows that Australia’s SVOD services are already investing at a higher rate than Australia’s broadcasters," claims the coalition's chair Paul Muller.
"This further demonstrates that the legislation passed last week is trying to solve a problem that simply doesn’t exist."
Muller says the increased investment clearly shows that SVOD services are committed to creating quality and authentic Australian content to win audiences’ attention at home and overseas.
"While the ACMA report highlights that SVOD services commissioned or co-commissioned fewer programs from the year before, SVOD services operate in a highly competitive environment and have focused on what their audiences want; bigger, bolder and more ambitious Australian stories."
Adult drama made up the lion's share of the Australian program expenditure by genre at $309.7 million, up 54 per cent, while documentary and sport spending fell considerably, children's drama held steady, and light entertainment rose marginally.
Commissioned and co-commissioned titles made up 76 per cent of streaming provider expenditure, with the report pointing to new Australian programs such as The Artful Dodger S2 (Disney+), War Machine (Netflix), Last King of The Cross S2 (Paramount+), Deadloch S2 (Prime Video) and Black Snow S2 (Stan) among the productions.
Screen Producers Australia (SPA) has welcomed the report and the increase in spending, but claims it is clear that Australian audiences are seeing less hours and titles of Australian screen content.
SPA claims most of the growth in spending was due toa significant investment by one provider in an as-yet-unreleased feature film at end of the financial year.
"The number of programs commissioned by SVODs declined 25 per cent year-on-year, with 41 titles compared with 55 in 2023–24 and 67 in 2022-23," the SPA said in a release this afternoon.
"As a result, Australian audiences are seeing fewer titles - and therefore fewer hours - of newly commissioned Australian content.
"Also of concern is that children’s drama remained flat, with expenditure holding at $3.3 million. This represents just 1 per cent of total drama spend, despite children accounting for roughly 18 per cent of the population.
"SPA believes that spending on vulnerable genres such as children’s and documentary programming requires careful monitoring by the ACMA and the Australian Government over the coming years, particularly as the new Australian Content Requirement Regulation comes into effect on 1 January 2026."
In a release, Netflix says SVOD services invest more in Australian scripted drama than all subscription and commercial broadcasters combined, despite being only 23 percent of total TV viewing time.
The multinational notes that the increase in expenditure on Australian content is almost the same amount as the $72.8 million that all commercial broadcasters spent in total on Australian drama, children's, documentary and "other Australian programming" last year.
"Licensing Australian content for global audiences is an important part of telling Australian stories on an international stage, and in the last year alone, ACMA data shows that SVOD services have invested $97 million in acquired content," Muller adds.
"However, with the mandated investment obligation, there is now an active disincentive for SVOD services to continue investing in this type of content, as it cannot be used to meet the new investment obligations."
For comparison to other developed countries with local content requirements, in July Netflix announced a commitment to spend more than €1 billion ($1.77 billion) on local content in Spain through to 2028.
On an annualised basis, this would translate to 22 per cent more than all SVOD providers spent on Australian content in FY25, and that's just from one streaming service that has approximately double the number of subscribers in Spain (7.8 million) as in Australia (4 million).
Elsewhere, in South Korea where Netflix has approximately 8.4 million subscribers, Netflix has slated a $3.8 billion budget for local content between 2023 and 2027.
Whilst Spanish content is viewed throughout the Spanish-speaking world and elsewhere, and Korean culture is having a global boom, numerous Australian original productions - too many to mention - have achieved blockbuster success and viewership with both English and non-English speaking audiences.
Netflix has declined to provide its own specific investment numbers for Australia, but a spokesperson emphasises the company's contibution to the industry.
"Today’s ACMA report reinforces what we already know: streaming services continue to be the highest investors in Australian content. Netflix is, and will remain, a committed investor in and champion of homegrown stories, regardless of regulation," the spokesperson says.
"However investment in content is only one piece of the puzzle - supporting a strong talent pipeline is essential to growing an increasingly competitive local screen industry.
"That's why Netflix has invested more than $10 million over the past five years in training and skills initiatives to build the capacity of the Australian and New Zealand screen industry."
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