Latest / What the Flux / How ABC Fumbled Bluey's Billions

Transcript

How ABC Fumbled Bluey's Billions · What the Flux

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is what the flux. I'm Larissa and it's Friday,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the twenty first of August. Here are the three biggest
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: news stories today. For our first story, Commonwealth Bank is
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: encouraging its customers to use their credit card points with
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Virgin instead of Quantus as it overhauls its rewards program.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It's because the Reserve Bank is banning credit card surcharges
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: from October, which helps fund credit card perks. The moves
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: expected to slash banks revenue by six hundred and sixty
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: million a year. For our next story, Merk Maderna, two
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: US pharmaceutical giants have created a vaccine that's prevented melanoma
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: from returning in a large clinical trial. Mrkshar has climbed
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: more than twelve percent and Maderna's stocks sword above one
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: hundred and seventy seven percent on the news. And for
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: our final story, Revel, the Australian appliance brand is using
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: AI to get its coffee machines to markets around the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: world faster. Brevels's AI developed prototypes for consumer testing five
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: times quicker, letting them go to market several months sooner
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: than usual. In this series Going Deep, we'll be doing
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Bite sized explorations into the most interesting industries, businesses and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: economic events in Australia and around the world. For today's episode,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: we're looking at one of the biggest missed opportunities in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Australian media history. Australia's produced some of the world's most
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: beloved content, from TV shows to digital platforms, that the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: whole world wanted. But again and again we've watched someone
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: else own the upside, with the kids TV show Bluey
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: being one of the most expensive examples. In this episode,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: we'll explore how that pattern happened, what it's cost the ABC,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and whether anything is actually changing. Over to you, Brett
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: and justin.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Thanks Larisa b Man. You know, every now and then
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: you read a story in the news about some bloke
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: in rural UK who found a Picasso at a garage
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: sale more for fifty bucks and then sold it somewhere
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: for fifty million.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I do classic stories of those ones.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Well, Australia's national broadcaster basically did that, except instead of
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Picasso painting, it was a blue cartoon cattle dog from Brisbane.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Go on, it's a bit about ground. The ABC is
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Australia's publicly funded national broadcaster.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Founded in nineteen thirty two and it runs TV, radio,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: streaming and digital news across the country.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: If you grew up in Australia, the ABC practically raised you.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: We're talking play School, Bananas and Pajamas, Round the Twist,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: the Wiggles and don't forget Kathin Kim before they defective
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: to commercial TV.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: It doesn't really generate match income though, so it means
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: it almost relies fully on government funding of around one
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: billion dollars a year.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: The ABC has always been incredible at spotting Australian creative
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: talent for the rest of the world catches on.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: The issue is it's also become good at giving away
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the commercial upside.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Yep, it will often co produce a series with an
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: international partner and then the commercial upside flows somewhere.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Else And nowhere is that more obvious than Bluey Yeah Blue.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: He was made in Brisbane, co commissioned by the ABC
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: and BBC Studios in twenty seventeen.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: The ABC secured the Australian broadcast right and.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: The BBC Studios took global broadcast rights, distribution rights and
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: commercial rights basically every part that prints money. So while
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: the ABC got to air Bluey. Domestically, the BBC got
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: the plush tourneys, the backpacks, the lunchboxes, the figurines.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: And as we know, b Man. The Bluey Show went
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: on to become the most watched series on Disney Plus
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: globally in twenty twenty four.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Seen in one hundred and forty countries, with merch soul
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: in fifty.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And it gets juicy because the Freedom of information request
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: found the ABC never even asked about a merchandising share, not.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: One email, not one conversation, not even quick hey, can
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: we maybe get two percent of the bingo plush? Is right?
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Josey boy? How bad are the numbers here?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Well? Brand Finance now values the blue franchise at around
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: two billion US dollars.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Gee that hurts theaxpayer.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: It does. BBC Studios pulled in two point two billion
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: pounds in commercial revenue in the twenty twenty four to
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five financial year. Gee that double hurts the taxpayers,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: and Bluey is a significant part of the three point
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: six billion US dollars in global retail sales the BBC makes.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: ABC's own managing director, Youugh Mark, said that the BBC
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: arrangement means around three hundred million bucks of annual income
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: is going to the UK and for contact b Man,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: three hundred million dollars is almost a third of the
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: ABC's entire annual government budgets.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Which means one cartoon dog may now be generating enough
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: money to fund approximately seven hundred seasons of gardening Australia.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: And to absalt in the wounds. The Bluey movie drops
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: August twenty twenty seven plus.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: And BBC Studios distributed globally and the ABC gets the
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Australian rights again.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: B Man, Bluey isn't the only time that ABC's fumbled
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: the bag.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: I'll take you back to two thousand and eight, the
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: same year Michael Phelps was collecting Olympic gold medals like
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Pokemon card. The ABC then launched iView.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: That's a streaming platform, and that was insanely early and innovative.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, seven years before Netflix or Stand arrived in Australia.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: The ABC basically had a head start in streaming and
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: somehow still ended up watching Netflix, Stand, Disneyplus, Amazon and
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: every other platform runs straight past them.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: And it's no surprise that eighteen years later Australian spent
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: three and a half bill on streaming subscriptions, but of
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: course most of that money went offshore.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And Ivy's reach among free to air catch up viewers
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: has slip from sixty two percent to fifty two percent
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: in the past year alone.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: And I think even ABC podcasts follows the same pattern.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. ABC is Australia's biggest podcast that with more than
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five shows, but distributes largely through Spotify.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: So boy, here is the challenge. The ABC's mission and
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: its commercial instincts often point in completely opposite directions.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: To ABC exists to serve Australians.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: And not to maximize shareholder returns.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: But the problem is when the taxpayer funded content becomes
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: globally valuable, we miss out on the upside.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: The ABC has generally treated commercial upside as someone else's problem.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The standard defense of the Bluey deal is that
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: it was normal practice for the era.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: The BBC co production model is how many children's animations
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: got funded internationally in the twenty ten But b.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Man normal practice can still be a terrible long term.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Strategy, especially when you accidentally create the Australian Mickey Mouse.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: But there is also a deeper problem because the ABC's
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: budget has been hammered for years.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: There was more than five hundred and twenty million bucks
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: cut from the ABC's operating budget between twenty fourteen and
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, and often that.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Kind of pressure changes behaviors and makes institution I think
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: short term, which can create a bit of a vicious cycle.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Budgets get squeezed, IP gets sold off shore, commercial upside
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: leads Australia, which means there's less money available to fund
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: future Australian content. So where to from here?
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Well, interestingly, the BBC model actually shows public broadcasters can
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: do both.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: MADA remind you the BBC is also a publicly funded
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: national broadcast.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Its commercial arm aggressively monetizes global rights and funnels profits
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: back into British programming.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: The ABC does have a commercial arm, but it's nowhere
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: near that scale or sophistication.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: And now Australia's new streaming quotas mean that Netflix and Disney,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: Plasts and others have to invest in more Australian content, So.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: There is more co production deals coming. There's more opportunities
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to get the IP question right or wrong.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: More opportunities to either learn from Bluey or immediately repeat
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: the exact same mistake with another cartoon, Massive Bill.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: But be man. Here's the thing about Bluey. It's not
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: really a story about one bad deal.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: It's a story about a national institution built to fine
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: talent and serve Australian audiences, but it.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Wasn't really built to protect Australian commercial value.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: The ABC finds the next blue commision as it does its.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Job, and then someone else owns the machine that turns
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: into a two billion dollar global franchise, And.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Honestly, there's something painfully Australian about that.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: We invented Wi Fi at CSROW.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Someone else monetizes it, We create Bluey, someone else sells
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: the backpacks, and.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: They man a meaningful commercial steak in. Even one globally
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: successful franchise could fund years of new local content.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Now it does the way. The optimistic version of the
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: future is that Bluey finally broke through the ABC's blind.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Spot and in the future it will capture at least
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: some of the value it generates.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: A slightly more pessimistic view is that the structural incentives
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: just have not changed. So the fear is that in
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: ten years there is another Brisbane studio making another global phenomenon.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And another broadcaster again rides on Australian made coattails. Fox Am.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: We hope you enjoyed our deep dive on the ABC
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and one of the great bumbles of our generation Blue.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: On Wednesday, we're going to be doing a deep dive
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: into the evolving Australian music festival scene. This was a
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: scene that once gave us big day out, sound waves,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: splendor in.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: The grass that no more.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: In this episode, we're looking at why so many of
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: them collapse, what the economics actually look like behind the scene,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: and whether anything is going to fill the cab they've
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: left behind. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Wednesday.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: M