2022/23 SPA Commissioner Survey results – Today Screen Producers Australia (SPA) released findings from their second annual Commissioning Survey, which aims to better understand the challenges faced by Australian production businesses when dealing with the leading commissioning platforms in Australia.
Low scores and declining results year-on-year, particularly from the streaming platforms, have overshadowed several positive industry results, which indicate improving engagement and communication practices and fewer instances of concerning contracting behaviours from the traditional platforms.
Of the 16 commissioning platforms reported on, streamers ranked lowest when it came to the perceived fairness of deals. Perceived fairness of deals includes views on the overall fairness of budgets, deliverables, and terms of trade.
One international streamer stood out as particularly unfair, with just 10% of producers who have been commissioned by them over the last three years seeing them as offering fair deals.
Not only that but of all the sixteen platforms covered in the survey, streaming platforms are those most likely to be acquiring rights they have no intention of using.
These results highlight the harmful and unfair industry conditions for Australian production businesses, a majority of whom are SMEs, and identify poor business practices imported by international streamers here in Australia.
“Many of the streaming platforms business practices are comparable to fishing ‘super-trawlers’ with nets trawling our screen industry scooping up rights to our nation’s stories for at best, incredibly long lengths of time – at worst, in perpetuity – and often, when they don’t intend to use them. This denies our SMEs and creatives the use and financial benefits of their own ideas in an ongoing way which in turn reduces the capacity they have to generate and develop their next ideas – thereby permanently damaging our screen ecosystem,” said SPA CEO Matthew Deaner.
The Streamers results in 7 of the 9 categories surveyed are below the industry average and they have gone backwards year-on-year in 6 of the categories.
SPA notes that these are the same aggressive business practices that are behind many issues driving the current writers’ and actors’ strikes in the USA.
SPA’s commissioning surveys serve as a barometer for the health of production deals taking place between production businesses and commissioning bodies, and these results highlight some troubling trends. 110 SME (Small and medium-sized enterprises) production businesses that had recent commissions or had engaged in commissioning processes with streaming platforms participated in the Survey.
Despite some improvements, in particular from subscription TV and providers, in the reported practices and behaviours across the industry, there are still several results that are cause for concern, including:
Free-to-air networks remain the platforms that producers feel offer the least appropriate budgets to match their delivery expectations, but streamers have declined sharply on this metric (65% down from 89% last year).
- Nearly a quarter (24%) of producers have reported being encouraged to commence production without an official green light in the last 12 months.
- Over a quarter (26%) reported being pressured into variations (additional deliverables or additional rights) without any material benefits.
- 36% reported they had to agree to unfavourable agreement variations with little or no perceived benefits when dealing with streamers. This is a worrying increase from 19% in 2021, where streamers were industry leaders.
“Our screen industry is holding its breath to see whether the Australian Government will stand up for Australian audiences and its storytellers in the screen industry by introducing a 20% reinvestment obligation on streamers with strong protections for intellectual property such as a reversion of rights to creators to ensure that we continue to foster a sustainable and vibrant screen sector in Australia for the benefit of our industry and audiences alike,” said Mr. Deaner.
A recent Roy Morgan report commissioned by Australian Made highlighted Australians want more Australian content on screens, and with SPA’s continuing advocacy for a 20% reinvestment obligation of Australian earned revenue into new Australian content, there must be a proper framework to ensure current and future brokered deals are fair, with Australian producers and production companies being treated fairly and compensated accordingly.
SPA also recently re-launched their Lateral Economics report that highlights a power struggle between Australian production businesses and streaming platforms when it comes to the retention of Australian screen stories and intellectual property, and worryingly that screen businesses are losing out.
Link to SPA’s landmark Lateral Economics report re-launched in May 2023, HERE.
SPA will continue to build upon the results of this survey to measure future surveys to determine whether bargaining constraints are becoming more balanced and to identify trends within and across commissioning platforms.
Link to summary report on the 2022/23 commissioner survey results HERE.
Media Release – Screen Producers Australia
Link to Screen Producers Australia HERE
TV Central Screen Producers Australia content HERE
