Pearls and Irritations

Like a tsunami, America’s influence has been spreading to most regions of the globe. While some countries are willing to allow this and even welcome their own culture being subsumed, others are not so inclined.

Australia stands out as the one English-speaking country – among the Five Eyes countries – where the Americans have almost total sway.

This has come about due to the timidity of Australian government to a large extent, and the fact that many Australians think it is a good thing to be obsessed with a country much more powerful than one’s own.

We are ceding rent free, important parts of our territory to the US for their military bases.

The AUKUS treaty, initiated by a right-wing Coalition government in 2021, has as its aim the use of Australian military hardware as an arm of the Stars and Stripes.

Australia has expressed a willingness to donate billions of dollars to the US and UK submarine industries believing that Canberra will get nuclear submarines for its own forces.

Given the production targets being currently achieved by the US and UK, this seems highly unlikely. But the project is set to drag on into the 2040s. Expecting the hardware to arrive is the ultimate triumph of hope over reason.

Quentin Dempster looks at some of the outer signs of the burying of Australian culture and traditions by the Americans.

Other articles will follow on the Americanisation of Australia.

The Americanisation of Australia: how we’re rapidly losing our cultural sovereignty

There’s no stopping it.

We are being Americanized. That’s spelt with a zee not a zed

“It’s ARSE! It’s ARSE!” wrote an exasperated Aussie complainant.

“You can shove your ‘ass’ up your arse.”

This response in a social media survey (Redditt) of Australian attitudes to the now rapid swamping of our culture with American accents, spelling, language, pronunciation, fast food, style, tastes, entertainment, music, sport and obese utility trucks provided a pertinent summing up.

“Language creep. There are American idioms starting to embed in the language,” said another.

It’s now pronounced com-AAND and not commarnd. De-MAAND not demarnd.

“People saying ‘y’all’. Stop it. Just … stop it!

“Batshit crazy politicians who can’t extract religion from their politics and seem to think their beliefs trump anyone else’s rights”.
And another: “American language and sayings I hate. Most loathed are ‘going to the bathroom’, ‘parking lot,’ ‘sidewalk,’ ‘diaper’, ‘candy’.”

And another: “Leave a tip? F**k. Right. Off!”

So what, you might ask. Language changes with popular usage. Why is this worth bothering about?

Many people obviously are not happy with what they perceive to be the accelerating Americanisation of aspects of Australian life. While there is a relieved acknowledgement that Australia has not followed the terrifyingly perverse US gun culture with its relentless mass shootings, the US influencers operating in Australia now have momentum through the digital revolution’s social media and global tech platforms. Through WiFi transmission of text, video and audio these mainly US platforms have immediate access to all Australian eyeballs and ears.

We will leave to one side foreign and defence policy. The potential loss of Australian sovereignty and independence has been well canvassed by specialists distressed about the ALP/LNP bipartisanship to go all the way with the USA with AUKUS nuclear submarines, US naval, army, air force and satellite surveillance bases operating from Australian soil.

As we all bask in the humble, not hubristic, glory of our returning Olympic athletes dripping with medals, we should perhaps reflect on the Australian character and its own intergenerational evolution.

But such is the dominance of US ways of seeing the world the concern is with Australians being rendered effectively voiceless in their own country and culture.

The issue therefore is cultural sovereignty. At a recent ABCAlumni briefing on audience trends, the dynamic of the digital revolution on Australians was exposed.

Digital and social media now dominate content consumption, particularly young people in their teens, 20s and 30s from cohorts known as GenZ (born between 1997 and 2012) and Millenials (born between 1981 and 1996). Many are speaking with Americisms and adopting American sensibilities.

US social media and video streamers now dominant

Of the total 26 million Australian audience:

• online apps and websites reach 88% each week
• social media (mainly Meta/Facebook and X) reach 86%
• short video on demand 80%
• video on demand – also known as the SVODs (streaming video on demand – Netflix, Disney+, Stan, Binge, Apple TV Plus, Prime Video, Foxtel Now, Paramount +, Kayo Sports, BritBox, Optus Sport, Shudder, Hayu, Flash) – reach 80%.
• free to air radio and television are 70% and 67% respectively and falling.

Recently the Albanese government legislated to require (mandate) smart TV manufacturers selling their flat screen products to Australians to give “prominence” to Australian TV branded apps including “live now” free-to-air programs on their home pages. Before this measure, you turned on your smart TV and they did not appear. There were only US apps. Because many smart TVs no longer use a terrestrial antenna and only receive their content via a household’s WiFi modem, the local TV networks were losing viewers.

While radio will survive mainly because of its mobile convenience and household companionship, commercial free to air broadcast television is said by some insiders to be in “terminal decline”. It has been losing advertising revenue to the global social media platforms who can offer more money-making precision through data mining of an individual’s age, browsing, geolocation and spending patterns.

Also, the video streamers carry negligible distribution costs through WiFi cyber casting (broadcasting on the internet). That cost is borne in the user’s bill from the internet service provider and his/her designated download limit. The pay-per-view or watching on demand subscription model has taken off. And, undoubtedly, Australians love the convenience and the vast, predominantly US, movie and TV show catalogues. New long form video productions have produced what is known as the “binge” viewing phenomenon.

Unlike Australian free to air television since 1956, there is no made-in-Australia content quota on the video streamers.

That FTA quota imposed by legislation on television licensees was the genesis of Australia’s local television production industry with its training and creative career pathways for all TV production crews, writers, actors, producers and directors. Under current regulations, free-to-air commercial television stations are compelled to broadcast 55% local Australian content between 6am and midnight on their primary channel.

Under its Revive national cultural policy the Albanese government “commits … to regulating Australian content on streaming platforms”. This commitment was subjected to a consultation process with all stakeholders and a Senate committee inquiry with an implementation priority deadline of July 1 this year. The inquiry recommended that 20% of a streamer’s gross Australian revenue had to be spent on local content. Committee chair Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told the Senate the now lapsed July 1 deadline indicated the Albanese government was “rolling over and cowering to the big streaming giants”.

Arts Minister Tony Burke downplayed the delay indicating that an announcement of the government’s intentions was still on track. A departmental spokesman told me: “We have brilliant talent in Australia, and we want to make sure that people have access to Australian scripted drama, documentary and children’s stories across different platforms. Consultation is taking longer than we would have liked, but we are determined to get this right. The government is aiming to introduce legislation as soon as practicable”.

As an immediate measure the government has legislated an amendment to the Income Tax Assessment Act, permanently increasing the location producer’s offset to 30 percent with the minimum qualifying Australian production expenditure thresholds increased from $15 million and $1 million per hour for television series to $20 million and $1.5 million per hour.

This has been welcomed by all players and makes Australia very competitive for projects to be filmed on selected locations with work for sound stages and post-production facilities with potentially enhanced demand here and obvious economic, industry and creative workforce benefits.

But so far the local industry is still waiting for that legislated content quota on the SVODs.

Please note that the audited gross revenues earned by the global US streamers has not been publicly released. It’s commercial in confidence.

Netflix has 6.1million Australian subscribers with an estimated revenue of $1.06billion in 2023. Stan with 2.6million subscribers had estimated revenue of $427million; Disney+ 3.1million subscribers with revenue of $810million.

Through their peak body, the Australia New Zealand Screen Association (ANZSA), the streamers have submitted that they already invest substantially in locally acquired and “Australian-related” content.

Streamers’ Australian – Australian related content investment

Quoting Australian Communication and Media Authority collected data the streamers collectively had invested $777million on “Australian and Australian-related” content in 2022-23.

While this is acknowledged by the local production industry through its peak body, the Screen Producers’ Association (SPA) there is a contentious problem.

In what seemed like a bitter exchange of supplementary submissions to correct possible misperceptions by the Senate inquirers, SPA’s CEO Matthew Deaner warned that Australia’s screen industry risked going forward as a “service provider for Hollywood productions” instead of growing its own storytelling capabilities.

“While we’re waiting, conditions for Australian screen businesses and consequently their workforce are deteriorating due to a noticeable freezing in commissioning, which is creating a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. There’s a growing sense of crisis in the local industry without this reform being in place.”

SPA is concerned that local production companies are at a competitive imbalance and can be forced to surrender their intellectual property in perpetuity if they want contracted work from the streamers. A legislated SVOD quota would enhance commissioning independence and leverage greater Copyright protection in contractual negotiations.

SPA is also concerned Australia’s “binding” commitment to the US free trade agreement may be being used as a reason for the Albanese Cabinet not to legislate a content quota on the US SVODs.

The video streamers through ANZSA dismiss this claim but nevertheless oppose a legislated 20% content quota and any obligation on them  must be fair and flexible. “Current calculations show that a 20% of revenue model would require streamers to invest substantially more than current levels.

“For Netflix, a 10% of revenue model would require them to spend 49% more than Channels 7, 9 and 10 combined, and 434% more than the subscription broadcast industry combined. A 20% obligation would therefore be double these amounts, impose a hugely unequal content obligation on streamers when compared with Australian broadcasters”.

There is also a dispute over the definition of what the video streamers claim is now an irrelevant requirement, the Australian Content and Children’s Television Standards.

“ANZSA submits that the ACCTS definition is no longer fit for purpose. It originated in the 1990’s at a time when the world was far less interconnected than it is now. Today, there is intense competition at a global level for talent and capital and the current definition restricts the ability for a streaming service to employ an international producer, or to collaborate with international directors and writers. This ability is essential to raise the investment required to produce many of the great Australian stories made available on streaming services today”.

SPA has also accused the SVODs of withholding some local productions as hardball leverage on the government not to legislate a quota.

ANZSA rejects this saying production schedules are unavoidably “ebb and flow”.

Sandra Levy, one of Australia’s most accomplished TV drama producers, script editors and talent mentors, and a former head of ABC Television, recently wrote for ABCAlumni: “In Australia, as in the rest of the world, the streamers are increasing the cost of drama and changing the audience for whom it’s made. Audiences now have access to screen drama with the best actors, directors, writers and composers in the world, attracted by the bigger budgets and more ambitious stories. The stories need to appeal internationally as that is the remit of the streamers, to attract big numbers of viewers in any country and from any language and cultural background. This affects the choices of stories, the need for a kind of universalism – more of an airport book than a small local story. It’s a trend that’s continuing to grow.”

So something will be lost out of all this global market universalism unless there are mitigating counter measures: what it means to be Australian with a character and voice shaped by the Australian experience.

This was an issue I canvassed in my 2000 book on the ABC’s struggle for survival Death Struggle How political malice and boardroom powerplays are killing the ABC (Allen & Unwin).

While then acknowledging that the US was a dynamic democracy my thinking about Australia was greatly assisted by Robert Hughes’ 1993 foreboding book Culture of Complaint – The Fraying of America. Art critic Hughes, an Australian living in the US, had identified the clear signs of the collapse of social cohesion in that polity. “Robert Hughes’ America showed a society at war with itself, a society of victims, a ‘hollowness at the cultural core’, a ‘nation obsessed with therapies and filled with distrust of formal politics; skeptical of authority and prey to superstition, its language corroded by fake pity and euphemism”. Hughes lamented the political and defunding attack of the Nixon, Reagan and Bush administrations on the US PBS (Public Broadcasting System) as a contributing factor in US “hollowness at the cultural core”.

Now through the digital revolution America is escalating its cultural invasion of Australia. While acknowledging the US video streamers are now spending a lot of money on “Australian related” content, movies and TV shows are commissioned by the US corporations mindful of how global market aggregation of audiences can be achieved.

Sandra Levy told me: “When I was growing up, we were dominated by British content, their stories and voices on our TV screens. We had to fight and lobby for years to get Australian stories seen and accepted. Now we are in danger of a new domination – the global phenomenon of the international streamers – and the potential loss again of our own voices. We need to lobby and fight again to ensure Australian voices and stories survive.”

Over to you Tony Burke. Get a move on.