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Podcast – Roadshow Rough Diamond

Producers John and Dan Edwards on Les Norton and keeping up with the changes in Australian TV.

David Wenham, Dan Edwards, John Edwards, Jacqueline McKenzie, Toby Wallace and Sophie Lowe

David Wenham, Dan Edwards, John Edwards, Jacqueline McKenzie, Toby Wallace and Sophie Lowe, Romper Stomper launch

Find this episode of the Screen Australia Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or Pocket Casts

When prolific television producer John Edwards was making shows like Police Rescue, serials were king. Three decades later, Australian television has gone through a multitude of changes, but Edwards is still creating TV that connects – from Offspring, to Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, to Romper Stomper.

The latter was the first project under Roadshow Rough Diamond – the company he co-founded with television executive (and son) Dan Edwards in 2016, in partnership with Roadshow Films. Their most recent series is Les Norton, currently airing on ABC TV Sunday nights, with catch-up episodes on iview.

In this latest podcast episode Dan – formerly of ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Southern Star, and Endemol Worldwide - combines his 17+ years of distribution expertise with John’s producing know-how to deliver their thoughts on a wide-range of topics – from creating space for new voices, to what commissioners are looking for, and what genres sell internationally.

“The good thing is I think across the industry there’s been some terrific deals put together and compared to 10 years ago, the proportion of international money has more than quadrupled in a lot of cases for I guess the real premium stuff,” Dan says.

The father-son pair speak to the markets they travel to most, including MIPTV in April and MIPCOM in October, and how budgets have changed.

“It’s much cheaper [to make TV in Australia] than the US and cheaper than the UK, for the most part,” John says. “[But] there are lots of hidden costs in budgets that exist now that didn’t exist even five or six years ago.”

The duo also talk through some of the projects on their slate including a relationship drama set against the whale migration called The Heat Run (working title), teen series Year Of (working title), and the highly-anticipated crime drama Australian Gangster with Channel Seven.

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