Adnan Zey and Ray Stevenson
Screen Australia and ABC have announced the five successful projects to be funded through the $1.5 million Long Story Short initiative.
Each project will be funded to create and produce a short-form, digital-first scripted series for 18-35 year olds, to screen on ABC iview.
The five successful creative teams were chosen from more than 250 applications, and offer a mix of comedy and drama. Each will participate in a two-day workshop in July, led by ABC TV executives and multiplatform writer and script developer Mike Jones. (more…)
By Don Groves
Documentaries investigating Australia’s war in Afghanistan, the fight against the country’s ice epidemic and the state of the heath and school systems will screen on the ABC next year.
The comedy slate includes two series starring Utopia’s Luke McGregor and six pilots, with viewers voting to determine which pilot goes to a series.
The ABC also confirmed its flagship channel will be available to live-stream on iview from December and that it plans to broadcast all content in HD from next June.
ABC director of TV Richard Finlayson said at the upfronts launch: “As the national broadcaster we will continue our commitment to Australian content, delivering a high-quality, deep and diverse slate.” (more…)
ABC managing director Mark Scott has foreshadowed a downsizing of the national broadcaster, including job losses, programming cuts and property sales as a result of budget cuts.
Mr Scott told Senate estimates hearings the axing of the Australia Network international broadcasting service will lead to job losses – including a reduction in the ABC’s number of foreign correspondents. A voluntary redundancy process will begin within weeks.
The government cut $35.5 million from the ABC over four years in this year’s budget and further cuts are expected following an efficiency review into the ABC and SBS. (more…)
The ABC and SBS will lose a combined $43.5 million in funding over four years and the ABC’s contract for the pan-Asian Australia Network is being terminated.
Screen Australia will incur a $25.1 million funding cut: $5.2 million in 2014-2015 and $5.3 million, $7.3 million and $7.3 million in the ensuing years. This may affect programs such as the revamped Enterprise Industry scheme, whose annual allocation depended on the Budget.
In the financial year ending June 30 the agency received $100.8 million. The government will achieve savings of $87.1 million over four years by reducing funding to arts programs administered by the Attorney-General’s Department, the Australia Council and Screen Australia. It said these savings would be redirected to “repair the Budget and fund policy priorities.” (more…)
USUALLY, at the start of each production the aim is to produce quality. For some reason, that does not always transpire. Here is an alphabetical list of shows – by people who mostly should know better – that failed to hit the mark this year, in our humble opinion. (more…)
The ABC could lose the ability to foster and discover new talent, such as The Chaser, due to cutbacks at the national broadcaster’s internal television program production operations, the public sector union has warned.
Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) ABC section secretary Graeme Thomson says there needs to be a full and open inquiry into the issue.
“It loses the ability for the new Chasers, the new Andrew Dentons to actually be found and actually be developed and I think that’s sad,” he told a Senate hearing on Monday in Canberra. (more…)
Townsend Management 