Goodbye Charlie Pickering? The ABC's bold plan to drop popular formats

7NEWS

08-05-2025

This week, I attended the Screen Forever conference on the Gold Coast as an invited guest. The three-day conference is hailed as 'one of the largest congregations of screen industry professionals in the Southern Hemisphere and is attended by The Who's Who in Australian screen business'.
And it's full of fascinating insights.
ABC'S BOLD PROGRAMMING PLAN
One revelation that caught my attention on Wednesday during a panel about 'Getting to know the ABC audience' was the discussion about future acquisitions by the national broadcaster.
As the industry starts focusing on a digital audience, the ABC is using data obtained through iView to see what is resonating with the online audience as opposed to the traditional broadcast audience.
Sunday dramas are watched on iView by 45 per cent of the audience and 25 per cent on broadcast television. Another 25 per cent catch the shows through encores.
Compare that to Wednesday night entertainment, which is watched live on the ABC by 45 per cent of viewers, 35 per cent of people watch the encores and just 10 per cent watch through iView.
Director of Content Jennifer Collins told the room that as the ABC transitions its audience over to iView, future commissions will be based on what resonates with that audience rather than the traditional broadcast audience.
Collins elaborated further, saying topical satire shows don't have a long shelf life on iView so, going forward, they are less likely to be commissioned.
The news is not good for fans of The Weekly With Charlie Pickering, which would seemingly not get picked up today, despite its strong ratings.
This does not mean that this show, or others like it, are going to be axed in the near future. What we're talking about here are shows that will likely be commissioned in the future.
So, if a show like The Weekly was pitched now, it would have less chance of being picked up by the ABC, whereas a show like Hard Quiz, which does not rely on topicality, is more favourable because of its 'long tail' (ie people will watch it for years to come as it is not time specific).
While this thinking makes sense, it would be a shame to see the loss of this type of format by the ABC, which has had a lot of success with these formats. I believe the ABC needs to find the balance between 'evergreen' formats and shows like The Weekly that while they might only have a short tail, have a big impact on our culture and our understanding of topical events.
But that's a view not shared by managing director Hugh Marks, who I spoke with on Thursday morning at the conference.
When I asked him about the change of strategy going forward, he firmly told me he does not agree with it.
While he said there always needs to be a balance when it comes to commissions, he did not believe satire shows should be dumped for evergreen content.
Marks is relatively new to his role as managing director and I genuinely believe he will be good for the ABC.
But it looks like further discussions are needed to get everyone on the same track.
TRUMP'S FILM TARIFFS
As you can imagine, US President Donald Trump's proposed global film tariffs have been the talk of the Screen Forever conference.
A submission by actor John Voight to the President would see a 100 per cent tariff placed on any film shot outside the United States.
'Our film industry has been decimated by other countries,' Trump told reporters at the White House this week (you can see his comments in the video player above).
'I want to help the industry, but they're given financing by other countries. They're given a lot of things, and the industry was decimated. If you look at how little is done in this country now, you think we were the ones, we used to do a hundred not long ago, a hundred percent. Now we do almost like very little.'
He has a point that tax incentives overseas and the high cost of production in Hollywood has seen many films move offshore to countries like Canada, the UK and Australia. That's having a flow-on effect leading to smaller business shutting down, including the iconic Prop Warehouse.
But I can't figure out how a tariff on films would work – and it seems I'm not alone.
When a product like steel is imported into the country, it is a tangible item that a tax (or tariff) can be imposed. But how do you add a tax to films distributed by Hollywood but using services overseas?
Even the official proposal gives no insight into how this would work. While it explains the problem and explores the need for incentives, it fails to address how a proposed tariff could be applied.
Valerie Creighton from the Canada Media Fund (CMF) told the Screen Forever conference that she was not concerned about the proposal.
'I don't think it's about fear, I think it's a distraction.'
Her point being that relying on just the US is not something the production sector should take for granted moving forward.
It's something new managing director of the ABC, Hugh Marks, agrees with.
'I think the message for I think this room and this conference is, you know, I think we've set ourselves up where we look to US investment into Australia and it's a bit of a boom-and-bust mentality that we're exposing ourselves to.'
'I think the discussion we need to have a lot more is what is the base of our domestic industry?
'How do we invest in that base?
'How do we build that base so that we're not so subject to the boom and bust of what happens internationally or the implications of people like Donald Trump?
'We need to reflect on the fact that we are always vulnerable to external forces.
'So, if that is the case, building on our domestic industry, investment into the domestic industry, I think is really much more important.'
More on what Hugh Marks had to say about the ABC below.
The big takeout from everything I've read about these proposed tariffs on the movie industry is that they have very little hope of working.
Considering America exports far more films and TV shows than other countries import into the US, any reciprocal tariff imposed by a country would kill Hollywood films by making them too expensive to watch.
There's no doubt a problem has been identified about the lack of production in California, but the only way to fix that issue is by tax incentives rather than punishing other countries, because that will only end up punishing the industry Trump is seemingly trying to protect.
But that's not a great solution either.
Will it all come down to who offers the biggest tax incentive? It's a dangerous game and not a long-term solution.
To be honest though, I don't know what the solution is but I'm pretty sure a tariff is not it.
HUGH'S ABC
As mentioned above, Hugh Marks, former chief of Nine Entertainment, was a guest at the Screen Forever conference this week. He was interviewed by journalist Virginia Trioli in one of the early morning sessions.
It was a fascinating insight into how Marks views the ABC and would have calmed those in the audience who feared he would turn the institution into a commercial-type broadcaster.
Marks made the case that the ABC needed to invest more into local formats and rely less on international franchises.
'IP generation and creation, like that's a multi-generational benefit. If we are just making shows for margin, if I'm in the production sector, that's great in the time and in the moment, but it doesn't necessarily build an industry.
'So, we must have an industry that's focused on the creation and generation of IP and, and the exploitation of that around the world.
On the way the ABC handled the Antoinette Lattouf controversy:
'Obviously it wasn't a great period for anybody and these are things that we need to get right going forward, because things that are a poor reflection on the ABC or the industry in general.
'I think there's things that we need to get right and we need to be better in how we respond and how we manage those sorts of things than, than we, than we were in that instance'.
On attacks from News Corp:
'The ABC has been under attack.
'We need to be comfortable to live in that world a bit and not feel like we need to respond to everything.
'Because, ultimately, what I'm trying to do is say to people, what are our goals? Where do we see success? What are the things we want to achieve? Just stay focused on that'.
'I will be out there defending what our people have done because I can tell you my experience is there is a great sense of purpose at the ABC.
'Everyone has a shared view of what they see as success in some ways. There is so much work goes into balance and all the right things that we have to do.'
I, for one, approve of Mark's appointment to the role and will watch with interest to see how he shapes the ABC.