Content quotas won’t guarantee another Bluey, says Ten boss

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Forcing Australian commercial TV networks to make more homegrown kids programming won’t deliver another Bluey, says the local head of Paramount, owner of Network Ten.

“The global success of Bluey is not due to quotas, its due to the fact it’s a brilliant show that is consumed all over the world,” says Beverley McGarvey, chief content officer and co-vice president of Paramount Australia.

“A quota wouldn’t have got Bluey made or not made. We will always adhere to our quotas, but there’s not actually a problem, and Australian audiences and kids are incredibly well served.”

Paramount Global’s Jules Borkent, left, and Beverley McGarvey, co-vice president of Paramount Australia, say bringing Nickelodeon to free-to-air TV is a win for audiences.Credit: Edwina Pickles SMH

Paramount is bringing kids’ favourites such as SpongeBob SquarePants, PAW Patrol and Dora the Explorer to free-to-air television, giving its American children cable service, Nickelodeon, a standalone channel.

McGarvey said bringing Nickelodeon to free-to-air TV opens up a bevy of programming to kids, at a time when Australian children’s content has dried up. Only two local shows were produced by Australia’s free-to-air commercial networks in 2022, after the Morrison government relaxed obligations for local children’s content three years ago.

“They have a great range of content to pick from, and now they have Nickelodeon in front of the paywall,” McGarvey said.

Ten has rebranded 10Shake, one of its secondary channels, to Nickelodeon as it aims to attract audiences to the popular content that has spent the past three decades behind the paywall of pay TV operator Foxtel.

Australia has historically been fertile ground for children’s programming, says Jules Borkent, executive vice president, international kids and family brands at Paramount Global, referencing H2O: Just Add Water and Round the Twist, as examples of titles syndicated by Nickelodeon, going on to be global hits.

Bluey is now perhaps Australia’s most famous export, but with little incentive in Australia to produce new content, the chances of its success being replicated are thin.

With a second season of Nickelodeon’s Rock Island Mysteries, produced in Queensland, going to air next week, Borkent said national borders appear to be less important when it comes to kids content.

“A kid in the UK won’t know that Rock Island is made in Australia. It doesn’t matter to them. They just love the content.”

Given Paramount is a global network, Borkent wants a variety of cultures represented across all its markets, but declined to comment on the quota legislation in Australia.

The commercial networks are against legislation to enforce content quotas on the international streamers. Free TV, which acts on behalf of Nine (owner of this masthead), Seven and Network 10, claims there is no issue with local production, with each network – Ten (71 per cent), Nine (79 per cent), and Seven (77 per cent) – exceeding the current 55 per cent minimum of Australian content between 6am and midnight.

However, others argue there is a content shortage for kids. Recent numbers published by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found there were 95 hours of locally produced children’s content on commercial television in 2022. This compares with 391 hours in 2019, the year before the rules were dropped, with the ABC now largely left flying the local flag.

Bluey is one of the most successful Australian TV shows of all time.Credit: ABC

McGarvey insists the company is still investing in content locally.

“We’ve commissioned 22 local productions for Paramount+ since it began in 2020, more than any other streamer in this region in the same timeframe, so while we can access incredible global content, we continue to invest in and produce local productions.”

The strategic shift regarding Nickelodeon comes at little cost for Paramount, taking its content in-house, and Borkent says 2024 is set to be a big with a reboot of Dora the Explorer and bumper content to celebrate 25 years of SpongeBob.

This year has proved increasingly challenging for Ten as it loses more ground to its competitors. Under pressure to compete without a top-tier sporting code, the network is languishing in fourth place in the ratings.

“I think it has been a relatively challenging year,” McGarvey said, adding that nightly linear programming was only one part of the story, with many of the network’s “big shows” still rating strongly on catch-up.

Ten has traditionally outperformed itself on commercial revenue due to its younger demographic, though the financial equation remains complex for Nickelodeon, and with advertising to children tightly regulated, Ten says it is taking a careful approach.

“Kids have a lot of influence on household spending,” says McGarvey, “so if we can balance that […] it puts us in a unique position because we are a commercial business, and we’re in front of the paywall.”

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