Cirrus@Austlit

'Long running Australian television dramas like Packed to the Rafters, All Saints, McLeod’s Daughters and Blue Heelers are no longer being made. Blue Heelers racked up 510 episodes and 25 Logies during its 12 year run; 122 episodes of Packed to the Rafters aired between 2008 and 2013.' (Introduction)

'Australians have enjoyed watching Australian stories on the small screen for generations. From Number 96 to Offspring, House Husbands to Mystery Road, Australian television has reflected Australia back to Australian audiences.' 

'Last week, free-to-air broadcaster Seven, embracing the spirit of a petulant teen, stomped its foot and announced it would no longer follow the rules regarding its Australian children’s content obligations. Nine has suggested it will soon follow suit. With the Australian government poised to release a local content policy options paper any day now, Seven’s belligerence looks like a preemptive strike.' (Introduction)

'Two Australian children’s TV programs, First Day and What’s It Like To Experience a Disability?, won prestigious Prix Jeunesse awards in May. Both were commissoned by the ABC’s children’s channel ABC ME. Both remind us that Australian children’s television consistently punches above its weight on the international stage.'  (Introduction)

'Australian children’s TV may have recently picked up an Emmy Kids award for the ABCME animation Doodles, but otherwise kids’ TV in this country is in a dire state.

'Free-to-air TV networks have to commission certain amounts of children’s programs each year. But in recent years there’s been a dismaying lack of new live action shows, or recognisably Australian content. Instead, local children’s TV has become dominated by animation with little sense of place.'

'Since the late 1970s, Australia has nurtured a creative and resilient children’s television production sector with a global reputation for excellence. Providing a systematic analysis of the creative, economic, regulatory, and technological factors that shape the production of contemporary Australian children’s television for digital regimes, Creativity, Culture and Commerce charts the complex new settlements in children’s television that developed from 2001 to 2014 and describes the challenges inherent in producing culturally specific screen content for global markets. It also calls for new public debate around the provision of high-quality screen content for children, arguing that the creation of public value must sit at the centre of these discussions.' (Publication summary)