In Norway, where winter nights last more than 18 hours, a distinctly summery show has secured a loyal fanbase.
The Australian reality show Bondi Rescue is a popular television staple in the Scandinavian country, while young Norwegians – like many others across Europe – are big fans of the ABC’s animation phenomenon Bluey.
As the federal government thrashes out legislation options to compel streaming giants such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime to reinvest a portion of profits into producing local content, dozens of Australian television series have been quietly earning extra income for their creators around the world. Some have been doing it for decades.
The family of one writer is still receiving royalties from a number of European countries, including France, Spain and Slovakia, for the 1980s television series The Flying Doctors, the Australian Writers’ Guild Authorship Collecting Society says.
Since 1996, when the collection agency began operating in Australia, The Flying Doctors has sent royalty payments of $490,000 to the writers of the series.
The UK’s love of Neighbours and Home & Away is well known, but the popularity of both shows spreads much further. Audiences in Latvia, the Czech Republic and Poland can tune in to keep up with events on Ramsay Street, and the same goes for Summer Bay in Estonia.
Latvia has taken to the Marta Dusseldorp/Noni Hazelhurst vehicle A Place To Call Home and the medical drama Doctor Doctor, created by the Academy Award nominated Australian writer Tony McNamara (The Favourite, The Great). Latvian children also have the chance to enjoy The Wild Adventures of Blinky Bill.
Top Of The Lake, The Secrets She Keeps and Wolf Creek airs in Poland and in the Netherlands McLeod’s Daughters remains a money spinner for its creators, 15 years after the outback family drama concluded in Australia.
The society expects to collect a record $2.42m in secondary royalties this year from globe trotting locally made television content, up 15% on last year. The funds will be distributed to Australian and New Zealand screenwriters – a mini payday each time their work is viewed in another country. For a show as successful as Bluey, this could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional income over a writer’s lifetime, and for their children or spouses after they die.
Among the top 10 earners for 2023 are some unexpected high flyers – Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The Brokenwood Mysteries, SheZow and McLeod’s Daughters all feature alongside more predictable favourites.
The executive director of the writers’ guild, Claire Pullen, says the income is a welcome bonus for writers.
“Royalties continue to be paid well after a series has ended its initial run, ensuring an additional stream of revenue for writers in a precarious industry,” Pullen says.
But with the rapid market dominance achieved by streaming platforms in recent years, that revenue is now under threat.
Netflix is ‘the 800-pound gorilla in the room’
The society collects royalties only for the secondary use of a work – educational copying, government use and retransmission on subscription television, for example.
Screenwriters and producers may also receive primary royalties, known as residuals, which are written into contracts and calculated based on domestic and global sales.
Streaming services in the US have recently sought to lock writers into contracts that cede all intellectual property rights to them once a show had been written and produced, denying them both primary and secondary royalties.
The most well known example has been the South Korean hit Squid Game, which has so far made Netflix $900m (A$1.3 bn) but has locked the show’s creator Hwang Dong-hyuk out of any share of the spoils, having signed away the rights.
Retaining intellectual property rights and access to royalties and residuals were key issues behind the recent five-month long Writers Guild of America strike.
In the tentative agreement reached between the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on 25 September, writers will now receive residual payments from streamers based on the success of each show if its budget exceeds US$12m.
Peter Mattessi, an Australian screen writer says he can expect to receive as much as $20,000 from royalties and residuals in a good year.
Mattessi has shows such as Neighbours, Home & Away, Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries and EastEnders in the UK on his resume.
“I get payments from all over Europe,” he says.
“But with the streamers [entering the industry], the way the model has changed, has hugely deflated the amount of income that writers can make from a piece of work.
“It’s writers, it’s directors, it’s actors, it’s producers, it’s everyone who over the … last 10 years has seen the shape of our industry change and the way that money is generated.”
Mattessi concedes his “professional heft” puts him in an advantageous bargaining position with big studios and streamers.
“When I walk into anywhere with an idea behind me I have 20 years’ experience, so what is removed from the equation is the doubt, the ‘can he do it?’ And I’ve also been around long enough and aware of the industrial landscape enough that I’m not going to sign something that I don’t think is fair. I’m represented by an excellent agent in the UK …
“But there are plenty of young writers who might not have an agent yet, who might not understand the industrial landscape and who just get taken advantage of because they want to get their show on the telly. And when Netflix – the 800-pound gorilla in the room – says we want to put on your show, then that’s enormously seductive.
“Writers can be persuaded into giving up rights that they shouldn’t, or that they didn’t even know they had.”
Mattessi, who sits on the collecting society’s board, says it is up to organisations such as the writer’s guild, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Screen Producers Australia and other peak bodies and unions to present a united front and stand firm over intellectual property rights.
The Albanese government has promised draft legislation to oblige streamers to reinvest in local content is in the wings. The industry is pushing for a 30% local reinvestment quota.
“Control of how much Australian content is on our screens shouldn’t be in the hands of American multinational streamers,” Mattessi says.
“It’s not something we can trust the market to deliver. Governments on both sides have agreed that it’s vitally important we have Australian content on our screens and at a certain quota level … and we’ve been doing it for 60 years. The same imposition should be made on international streamers.”
