Defining a national brand: Australian television drama and the global television market

Abstract

One option for television drama producers confronted by rising production standards and increasing costs is to become more international in orientation, leading to speculation that national and cultural boundaries may become less important at the higher end of drama series production. Television drama would then become the ‘decontextualised space for universal modes of storytelling’, with lifestyle and reality television formats the more likely vehicles for expressing ‘cultural specificity’. But national and cultural boundaries do matter. The particularities of national television cultures – local policy configurations, historical and cultural influences, technology uptake, the size and wealth of national economies – all impact on the ability of television producers to engage with the global trade in television fiction. This article examines the way in which this global trade internalises and works with national particularities through the sense of a national brand that locates Australian content within a certain value hierarchy. The following discusses three successful examples of internationalised television programming – McLeod's Daughters (2001–2009), Sea Patrol (2007–), and the children's series H2O: Just Add Water (2006–) – that have worked within international perceptions that differentiate Australian content according to perceived cultural sensibilities and national image.