While Australia’s commercial broadcasters spent more on local content in 2022/2023, this investment didn’t go towards kids content, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).  

In its latest report on commercial TV program spending for the period between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023, the government agency has found that local commercial nets spent just US$495,000 on what it calls “children’s other” content, which is 15% less than the previous financial year. And worse, they spent zero dollars on “children’s drama” programming last year, compared to US$1.3 million in 2021/2022.

Looking at it historically, domestic channel spending on the children’s other genre has dropped sharply over the past few years, from US$8.7 million in 2018/2019. Same thing with children’s drama spending, which came in at US$7.6 million in 2018/2019. The start of this downward spiral correlates to the government abolishing children’s content quotas for Australian broadcasters in 2020.

ACMA’s data measures the expenditures of 69 television broadcasters operating in Australia. Collectively, they spent US$1.1 billion on domestic content overall in 2022/2023, which is actually up from roughly US$1 billion the previous year. And this level of investment has remained relatively steady since 2018/2019—which makes the precipitous drop in kids content spending even harder to stomach.

In response to the report’s findings, Screen Producers Australia released a harshly critical statement today. “These new figures are highly alarming—but not at all surprising,” says SPA CEO Matthew Deaner. “Until there is more balanced regulation of commercial broadcasters and the increasingly dominant streaming platforms, nothing will change for Australian child audiences.” 

Commercial TV networks’ spending on Australian kids programming from 2018 to 2023 in Australian dollars. Data from the ACMA. “Children’s other” is the yellow line and “children’s drama” is red.