Nothing is more certain than change, but when entire industries fall apart in a short period of time, it comes as a surprise. The pace of recent change has caught many off guard, and since trends in the video industry are bigger than any of us, a quick look at what could be coming soon is worthwhile.

As the largest source of English-language film and TV, the USA has a strong role in video production for the entire world. While much of this content is dubbed or captioned for international audiences, most viewers prefer to see content made natively in their own language. Norway wants Norwegian-language content made in Norway, and most other countries around the world have a natural demand for content created in their own language.

However, smaller mostly-English-speaking countries like Australia and Canada face a unique problem, because the lack of a language barrier means that most US-made content can be successfully imported. Streaming has brought more content than ever before, and as broadcast TV stumbles worldwide, you have to ask: what happens to a country’s culture when it stop telling its own stories?

Some of this story is told in a fascinating, somewhat chilling report from March this year: 10 Years of Netflix in Australia: Streaming Players and Local Content. It’s freely available and worth a read. While the Australian experience won’t play out exactly the same in every country, change is coming sooner or later. Here’s an overview.

The Australian TV landscape

Here in Australia, we have three major commercial networks (Seven, Nine, Ten) and two public service networks (ABC, SBS). Each runs several digital broadcast channels and online catch-up  services.

Many of the streaming services familiar to US audiences are available here, but not all. We have Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Paramount+ and only recently, Max (once known as HBO). Many smaller streamers occupy specific niches, including Kayo for sport, BritBox for many UK-made shows, Hayu for reality TV and a few more.

We don’t have Hulu (though many of its shows are found in Disney+) or Peacock, but we do have local streaming service Stan (owned by Nine) and Paramount+ actually owns our local network Ten. Also, the cable network Foxtel started a streaming service called Binge that’s moderately successful, but both are facing strong headwinds.

Cable has never been as big in Australia as it is in the US, and now struggles to compete against streaming. Now that Max is available locally, both services have lost their library of HBO originals, and that’s going to hurt. With sports also drifting away to a variety of streaming services, cable’s fast losing its once-unique selling points.

Broadcast TV makes most of our local content

Before streaming, the five broadcast networks were responsible for local news, drama, comedy, game and reality shows. Of course, imported shows were a big part of the mix, but there was a demand for Australian stories and an important local production industry. Notably, nightly soap Neighbours provided a springboard for stars like Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue and many others to launch their careers, though it’s recently been cancelled for a second time after Prime Video briefly resurrected it.

Regulations force broadcasters to show mostly local content, and so they make a lot of it. By law, commercial TV licensees must show at least 55% Australian content between 6am and midnight on their primary channels. They must also commission Australian shows, and there are additional incentives for drama production. (Details from ACMA.) The public service broadcasters also make original programming, but are held to standards in their charters rather than firm quotas.

While quotas do force local TV networks to spend money on local productions, the problem is that fewer viewers are watching broadcast TV at all — less than half of Australian adults in 2024 watched free-to-air TV. Streamers aren’t subject to the same local content quotas, and if most of the content being watched is on streamers, most of it suddenly isn’t Australian.

While there’s absolutely a parallel with the US in terms of dwindling audiences for local networks in the face of streaming, there are still US voices telling US stories. Here, it’s an existential threat to the entire industry. If there’s not enough work to support full-time TV production careers, that impacts the talent pool available to work on feature films too.

Streaming caused a huge shift in local production

Netflix launched in 2015, and between 2019 and 2023 it invested over AU$1 billion in local productions. Australian shows like Please Like Me, Heartbreak High, Boy Swallows Universe and Apple Cider Vinegar have found international audiences. While hits like Germany’s Dark and South Korea’s Squid Game are notable exceptions, of course most Netflix content is from the US.

Local streamer Stan has more of a local focus, and it’s currently the largest commissioner of Australian drama titles — more than all the international streamers combined. Still, only 25% of Australians use Stan, inviting a discussion as to whether it’s right to subsidize content that few people will see. Paramount+ has commissioned several local productions, but they’re smaller than Stan, Prime Video, Disney+ or Netflix, and they often share their productions with their broadcast half, Ten.

The other big local streamer, Binge, has made a number of original programs, including the internationally popular Colin From Accounts. However, as its parent cable company Foxtel becomes less popular and shifts its focus to sports, its unclear if that local production push will continue. 

Prime Video has been around since 2016, and while they’ve produced shows like (the excellent) Deadloch and The Office Australia, they don’t make as much local content as Netflix or Stan. Disney+ doesn’t make a lot locally, and though it’s the home of worldwide hit Bluey overseas, Bluey is made by our national public service broadcaster ABC, and shown on its free streaming service ABC iView.

But while the streamers are funding local production, the local viewing diet has skewed more international than it once did. Broadcasters faced with declining budgets are making fewer expensive dramas and making more — and cheaper — unscripted reality and game shows. Per the report, Australian television drama hours have dropped 55% since their early 2000s peak. Given the desire to employ local crews and actors, and since viewers seem to prefer ad-free streaming drama, a solution comes to mind.

Why not put quotas on streamers?

In an environment where broadcasters are subject to local production quotas and streaming services are not, it may seem obvious to consider either easing the burden on broadcasters, or forcing streamers to spend a portion of their local profits on local productions. Both have been considered, and in fact the current local content rules are less strict than they once were. Part of the changes mean that commercial networks are longer forced to make children’s programming, and as a result, they don’t. There was also a plan to ask streamers to spend 5% on local productions.

However, due to concerns that new rules could be seen as a violation of Australia’s free trade agreement with the US, these requirements have not yet been implemented. After pushback from the US government (and also against the EU, Canada, China, India and Korea) these measures have been delayed, though the (recently re-elected) government has expressed its commitment to the local industry. (Variety, 3 April 2025.) The same free-trade concerns in New Zealand means that they have no formal local production quotas at all.

Viewers haven’t just moved to streaming

A complicating factor is that many viewers are spending less time watching traditional content, and watching more short-form vertical content on services like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

Those videos use a different set of skills, employing fewer people, for less time. While that’s the topic of another article, adding local content quotas to streaming services wouldn’t fix the whole problem. Worldwide, an entire generation now expects most of their content to be short, swipeable, and on a phone. The consequences of that are still hitting the industry.

Conclusion

While Australia is not the only country in this position, video production companies in non-English-speaking countries are likely to have a somewhat easier transition away from broadcast TV. Productions will still be dubbed or subbed — maybe “vubbed” — to meet local requirements, but local productions will still have a place.

In the English-speaking world, the UK has a much larger industry as well as more viewers to support its output, so it’s somewhat shielded. And although Canada is of a similar size to Australia in population, its proximity to the US brings many more productions its way. It remains to be seen what the effect of proposed US tariffs on non-US productions will be, but whatever happens, it’s likely to be a rocky road.

With luck, every nation will maintain its own unique voice and video production industries — but it’s getting harder. For now, the Australian video industry can draw some comfort in knowing that a small team in Brisbane created a program that the US watched more than any other — 55.6 billion minutes of Bluey. Every nation has great stories to tell, but we aren’t competing on a level playing field. Surely a few dollarydoos from US streamers towards local productions is fair enough?

If you work in TV production anywhere in the world, things are changing. Recommended reading.