Content Restrictions

On Australian television there are restrictions which govern the amount of time which must be allocated to local content. Between 6am and midnight 55% of content on television must be Australian. This is put into place to ensure that the industry is able to survive and continue.

Canada is in a similar situation to Australia in regard to broadcast television. Like us, they produce a high amount of children’s content (open to page i). They, like Australia also have a smaller industry and population than the United States. Without protection they would likely be overrun by the larger, and not culturally distant American television industry.

So far, Canada are not placing restrictions on streaming services because they have so far found it not to be detrimental to their local industry. An investigation by Canadia Radio Television and Telocommunications Commission (CRTC) found that people who live in homes with Netflix do not watch less local content than those without. However it is still early days for the online streaming service who only got a hold of the Canadian market in 2008. The CRTC have pledged to closely monitor the impact of these services on the Canadian broadcast environment over time, and adjust the laws if they feel that online streaming services are harmful to the industry.

So how will the local industry be affected if streaming services become increasingly popular in Australia? Will it be helped or hindered? Should new guidelines be devised to include streaming services?

More importantly, how would you go about placing restrictions on a service without time limitations like television? It seems there are a lot of dilemmas to explore here and we are only beginning to scrape the surface of what might eventually be a whole new way of looking at local broadcast industries.

Pulling Together a Feature

At this stage of our project we’ve found several important angles to explore regarding the way online streaming will affect the broadcast industry if legal streaming alternatives became available and popular in Australia. We have divided up the story angles between our group members.

I will be examining the effect of services such as Netflix on children’s content, utilising case studies from the United States. I will also be examining the way local content has been affected using Canada as a case study. Live content seems to be a way to keep television on top at the moment and hence is another important angle to explore.

Sarah B will be looking at the legal implications of online streaming in regard to intellectual copyright and copyright. She will be interviewing people at the forefront of their fields to help explain the complexity of these ideas.

In some ways online streaming has been shown to help ratings on television. Eryk will be examining the catch-up effect. He will also be looking at ways that people are already streaming content in Australia, whether legal or illegal.

Tyson will be looking at the way the presentation of websites allow the effective dissemination of information to audiences. He will also be considering the appropriate publication and style for our website.

Jessica will be examining the impact on advertising. Television and online content work according to very different business models and advertising on each medium have very different levels of effectiveness.

We will be researching these in more detail and outlining our findings in the blog.

Its Already Here

In some form...accessing netflix is already possible in Australia, if slighltly illegal, the number of youtube tutorials and online guides is a testament to its increasing popularity as an alternative to torrenting.

Kick start

A good starting point with some general info on the state of online video demand platforms in Australia. Looks like we are a bit behind the eight ball, only a matter of time before large companies like netflix and hulu overtake the expensive and inadequate services of Australia's quicklflix. The questions is why haven't they come here yet? How long will it be before they do?