All TV Drama formats
spend in Australia

Amount and proportion of expenditure in Australia by Australian and foreign TV drama productions, 1994/95–2020/21

Since the mid-1990s, Australian productions (including co-productions) have generally accounted for almost 90 per cent of TV drama spending in Australia.

Australian TV drama productions tend to spend almost all their budgets here, while for foreign TV drama the proportion is lower. Between 2000/01 and 2009/10 foreign programs spent an average of 62 per cent of their total production budgets in Australia, compared to 91 per cent for Australian productions. Amounts spent overseas by Australian productions relate mainly to animated programs for children.

While foreign TV drama has generally accounted for around 10 per cent of all TV drama spending in Australia, with the high-budget production The Pacific in 2007/08 it reached 33 per cent.

Since 2000/01, annual spending in Australia on foreign TV drama has fluctuated. In 2007/08, The Pacific allocated $134 million of its $150 million budget to expenditure in Australia, the highest dollar amount since this indicator has been recorded.

In 2020/21, expenditure on Australian television productions was up by 4 per cent on last year's decade low. General TV drama was up by 7 per cent, while children’s was down by 6 per cent.