Sam Doust, creator and executive producer of ABC’s Bluebird AR, answers a lot of questions on Bluebird AR.

Section 6(1)
“The functions of the Corporation are:
(a) to provide within Australia innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services of a high standard as part of the Australian broadcasting system consisting of national, commercial and community sectors and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, to provide:

(i) broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community; and
(ii) broadcasting programs of an educational nature”

Results of survey of Australian screen content producers.
4000 producers identified, 2000 contacted, 12% completed survey.
First question: You a producer? If not, no survey.

91-94
Lit review: producer.

94-96
Lit review: Creative Industries.

95
“The important implication for our argument, however, is that what were formerly known as the ‘cultural industries’ (film, TV, music, and so on) have now been subsumed into a broader category that includes non-media-based creative outputs such as design, fashion, heritage activities, and so on.”
“In the push to get cultural production taken seriously by governments and government agencies, the very real distinctions among skill-sets and working cultures arguably have been glossed over.”

97
“A staggering 42 per cent of film producers have a postgraduate degree.”
75% hold Bachelors degree.

100
“[Producers'] optimism about their own outlook contrasts starkly with their outlook on the industry as a whole”.
“what the survey results describe is something other than the slightly romantic notion of the ‘creative class’ advocated by Richard Florida (2002), and perhaps a little closer to the unstable context of ‘media work’ outlined by Mark Deuze (2007).”

101
“And we need to be attentive to the fact that cross-media mobility is not simply a characteristic of media consumption, but is increasingly a fact of life in production as well.” Oh really?

1960s

• Australia needs identity
• Less connection between Australia and Britain
• Cultural nationalism
• High ratio of Australian productions on pay TV

1980s

• 10BA

Today

• Free trade agreements all around
• Lure foreign film production to Australia
• Low ratio of Australian productions on pay TV
• PayTV probably overtakes free-to-air TV
• Policy embraces internationalism

Australian film and TV industry (AFTI) drifts gradually from cultural nationalism to internationalism.

“Australian film and television policy is a case of incremental change through ‘layering’ and ‘drift.’”