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The streaming giants would be forced to spend on Australian content, the commercial broadcasters offered a new licence system, and the role of the ABC and Sbs in producing local programming formalised, if policies outlined in a new green paper from the Federal Government are adopted.

Released today for industry consultation, the paper, dubbed ‘Modernising television regulation in Australia’ outlines the government’s intended ‘next stage’ of media reform. This is in line with its response to last year’s Accc Digital Platforms Inquiry, when it committed to a “platform-neutral regulatory framework”.

September saw the first step in the reform plan, with announcements including the overhaul of the fixed content quotas on commercial free-to-air, and the harmonisation of the film and TV Producer Offsets at 30 per cent.

At that stage, streaming services were merely asked to begin reporting their Australian acquisitions to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma).

Yet Minister for Communications,...

Hannah Gadsby.

Facing the prospect that the Federal Government will impose local content spending obligations on SVOD services, Netflix asserts it wants the right to negotiate how much it invests over the next three years.

In its submission to the government’s ‘Supporting Australian Stories on Our Screens’ options paper review, the streaming giant proposes a “flexible, reasonably-set voluntary investment model that meets cultural policy goals and incentivises wider investment.”

Netflix rejects option 3, which is favoured by Screen Producers Australia and all industry guilds and would require all delivery platforms to invest a minimum percentage of their Australian revenues into local scripted content, with annual sub-quotas for drama, documentary and children’s programs.

This model has “the potential to cause significant problems for the sector, including the reality that there is currently insufficient physical production capacity for this option to work meaningfully in practice,” it says, which arguably ignores the...

Chris Lilley.

Netflix has removed four Chris Lilley comedies from its platform in Australia and New Zealand: We Can Be Heroes, Summer Heights High, Angry Boys and Jonah From Tonga.

Two other shows from Lilley, Ja’mie: Private School Girl and Lunatics, a Netflix Original, remain on the streamer.

While Netflix has yet to publicly comment on its decision to pull the shows, it comes amid renewed criticism of the comedian’s portrayal of non-white characters using blackface and brownface. Variety reports that the removal of the shows will be permanent.

The series see Lilley play characters such as African-American rapper S.mouse (Angry Boys), Tongan schoolboy Jonah Takalua, Japanese mother Jen Okazaki (Angry Boys) and Chinese physics student Ricky Wong (We Can Be Heroes).

We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High were commissioned by the ABC, Angry Boys by the ABC and the Us’s HBO, and Jonah...

Four Chris Lilley series have been pulled from Netflix in New Zealand and Australia due to criticisms of the shows’ depictions of people of color and the use of blackface and brownface makeup, TheWrap has learned.

The white Australian comedian’s “Summer Heights High,” “Angry Boys,” “We Can Be Heroes” and “Jonah From Tonga” — which were produced by Princess Pictures and first aired on Australian Broadcasting Corporation — have all been removed from the streaming service in New Zealand and Australia.

Lilley uses blackface to play black rapper S.mouse in “Angry Boys” (pictured above) and brownface to play Jonah, a teenage Tonga native, in “Summer Heights High” and its spinoff series “Jonah From Tonga.” In “We Can Be Heroes,” he plays Ricky Wong, a Chinese physics student.

Also Read: Netflix Launches 'Black Lives Matter' Collection With More Than 45 Films, TV Series and Docs

Lilley’s shows “Lunatics,” which features Lilley playing a South African woman,...

Exclusive: Netflix and the BBC were in lockstep over the decision to remove episodes of Little Britain from their libraries after the British comedy featured blackface sketches, but differences of views are emerging over other shows.

In the heat of the Black Lives Matter movement, Deadline can reveal that Netflix has removed four shows from controversial Australian comedian Chris Lilley from its services in Australia and New Zealand.

Angry Boys, Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, and Jonah From Tonga have all been taken down after featuring characters that have in the past sparked questions over racial discrimination. The shows were originally made by Australian producer Princess Pictures for the ABC.

Angry Boys features blackface character S.mouse, while Summer Heights High and Jonah From Tonga include Jonah Takalua, for which Lilley wore brown makeup. In We Can Be Heroes, Lilley plays Chinese physics student Ricky Wong.

Lilley’s other series,...

Murder Mystery ranks top in nine including Us; The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann tops UK.

Local language films and TV shows lead the list of most popular content viewed on Netflix in eight countries outside the Us in 2019.

The streaming platform released the information on Monday (December 30), based on the number of accounts that watched at least two minutes of a film or TV show in its first 28 days of release on the platform. While the number of accounts is not revealed, it does illustrate how local audiences continue to respond to Netflix’s aggressive local language production strategy.

Sacred...

‘Lunatics’. (Photo: Amelia Entertainment)

Since 2017, we have been studying the availability of local content on the major subscription streaming services operating in Australia. Our latest report, which examines Netflix, Stan and for the first time, Amazon Prime Video, confirms that the level of local content on these services remains modest, although the number of original productions is growing.

There is also increasing variation between the three services in terms of the kind, age, and genre mix of Australian-made material they carry. The entry of Disney+ and Apple TV+ next month will add new complexity to this rapidly changing market.

We were surprised to learn how much Australian content Amazon Prime Video offers (over 400 Australian titles). However, Amazon is significantly different from Stan and Netflix for several reasons, which make direct comparisons between these services misleading.

Netflix: few local titles, but increasing investment

With an estimated audience of 11 million Australians, Netflix is the clear market leader.

The Jonas Brothers are teaming up with a new fashion designer who's sure to have a huge impact on their style ... possibly for worse. That's not a knock on the guy ... because he's Australian comedian Chris Lilley, playing one of his several characters from the new Netflix series/mockumentary, "Lunatics" -- wannabe fashion guru, Keith Dick. It's unclear what Joe, Nick and Kevin are doing with Dick, but they were spotted walking around with him Tuesday in NYC,...

Netflix is famously tight-lipped when it comes to revealing how many people are tuning in to its endless supply of movies and TV series, though the streaming giant does occasionally toot its own horn when one of its titles does especially well. Now the company is experimenting with a weekly list of its most-watched offerings in the UK, with nature docuseries “Our Planet” topping the first edition.

In a Twitter thread, the company announced that it will be releasing such lists on a weekly basis from here on out. To compile them, “we look at the most-watched individual season of a show, film or special (regardless of when it launched). ‘Watched’ means members finished at least 70% of one episode.”

“It’s a test as we want to make sure this information is useful for you,” Netflix added. “So we may tweak it in the weeks ahead. eg. we’re not including kids right now.