Good news for the kids industry from down under—annual spending by Australian commercial broadcasters on local children’s content has bounced back, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The government org released an annual report yesterday detailing commercial TV programming investment in the country for the 2023/2024 financial year.

On the whole, total domestic spend across all genres came in at US$1 billion (AUD$1.62 billion), which is more or less in line with the annual average over the past few years, although it’s down slightly from US$1.03 billion (AUD$1.67 billion) in 2022/2023.

But breaking things down by genre, commercial networks funneled around US$1.1 million (AUD$1.75 million) into children’s dramas, representing a strong recovery from a zero-dollar spend in this category that was recorded the previous year. 

Meanwhile, all remaining genres of kids programming—falling under a “children’s other” category in the report—were buoyed by US$864,000 (AUD$1.34 million) from commercial networks. This figure also marked an uptick from US$480,000 (AUD$743,000) in 2022/2023.

For this annual study, ACMA draws on spending data provided by 68 commercial TV broadcasters in the region every March. The full report is available on the org’s website.

Pictured: 9Network’s 2023 kids show Earth Science Investigators