Its 2017.

Why are Australian streaming

services still lagging so far behind?
Lauren Carroll Harris
Platforms and broadcasters are getting away with offering too little for too much, and
audiences have had a gutful

Winter is ... [STILL LOADING]. Photograph: Helen Sloan/HBO

Wednesday 19 July 2017 04.00 AEST

L
ast week, SBS on Demand provoked ire by shoving ill-tting ads in the middle of
dramatic scenes of hit series The Handmaids Tale a show which had already taken
months to migrate here after its US debut.

And then on Monday, to add insult to injury, Foxtel Now went awol at the worst possible
moment: with the predictable surge in demand for the premiere of Game of Throness
seventh season, signicant numbers of customers werent able to log in.
The social media backlash was immediate.

In a statement to the press, Foxtel explained that its streaming subscriber base leapt by
40% in the 48 hours prior to GOTs season premiere. Foxtels tech services couldnt handle
what it said were 70,000 logins in the space of a few hours meaning that the company
signed up subscribers it didnt have the tech capability to support.

Of course, the problem is much bigger than just Foxtel. In 2017 in Australia, video on
demand (VOD) services can be sluggish, unreliable and pixelated, a disappointing prize for
what is often a long wait between a shows overseas debut and its local premiere and
viewers frustrations are boiling over.

The source of Australias VOD woes are a molotov cocktail of many crummy realities: the
grim failure of the NBN as a key piece of national digital infrastructure (with new reports
saying it is actually slowing some customers speeds); a lack of regulation and oversight in
the VOD market; and an apparent disinterest on the part of VOD platforms in providing
genuine services with the right tech at the right price. Viewers in other countries dont seem
to suer from the same problems to the same extent.

Perhaps its to do with the relative youth of the VOD industry here. Rewind just two and a
half years, and Netix wasnt even on the continent. There was no legal way for viewers to
watch and pay for many new programs like Mad Men in the week of their US releases, and
researchers drew a link between high piracy rates and this lack of accessibility.

Since then, the Australian VOD scene has quickly gone from sparsely populated to terribly
crowded with Netix, Stan, iView, SBS on Demand and Foxtel Now, plus a bunch of other
platforms that stream single lms or episodes like the iTunes store, Dendy Direct and Ozix.
One platform has already gone bust in the crush remember Presto?

For a short while, it seemed that Australias digital backwater status was fading into the past.
After the VOD market opened up, there was a dip in VPN usage a polite way to sidestep
geoblocked US sites like Netix and pay to access shows upon their release date, which had
become a mainstream practice. Perhaps, we thought, the streaming war would nally abate.

But this weeks events demonstrate that this war has just ared up on dierent fronts.
Streaming, like everything, is becoming a test of the free market and how it works or
doesnt work.

Free-market logic says that competition will lead to a better outcome for all, but if thats the
case, the various VOD platforms should be falling over themselves to compete for our
attention with better choices for content, value for money, friendly technology and less ads.

After all, global consumer culture has led fans to expect to get what they want, when they
want it. Australian viewers are understandably fed up with high costs, low speeds and the
complication of sifting through a myriad of services that are providing much the same
choices. We once paid a premium to watch what overseas viewers had seen months or even
years ago; now we pay a premium to watch the same stu we can at the multiplex, with a
few prestige TV shows thrown in, and varying standards across the platforms (why is Foxtel
Now so smooth, and SBS on Demand so grainy?).
The services themselves are scarcely dierentiated theres little in the way of daring
programming, and barely any original commissioning.. SBS on Demand remains the leader
for cool, thoughtful lms, but it now collects a creepy amount of personal information
(birthdates? Why?), and hasnt publicly addressed viewers valid concerns about bugs,
playback freezes and brutishly-timed ad placements.

iViews biggest point of dierence is its strong local content, but the ABCs ongoing funding
issues undermine the true potential of the platform as a reliable portal of local material.
When satirical legend John Clarke passed away and both seasons of his classic comedy, The
Games, appeared on iView within days, we got a glimpse of what a bit of forward-thinking
and funds to pay for digital licenses could do to get the most luminous parts of the ABCs
back catalogue online.

And yet: either from lack of money for digital licensing, or an absence of creative thinking,
much interesting and beloved Australian content still cant be watched online in a legal,
paid-for manner. Wheres Love My Way, almost universally regarded as one of the countrys
nest television programs? Wheres Bliss, a small, strange, fantastical lm by Lantana
director Ray Lawrence, which signies a crucial moment in the story of Australian cinema?
Wheres High Tide by Gillian Armstrong, which US critic Bilge Ebiri calls one of the greatest
lms of the 1980s?

None of these titles are on Australian VOD platforms and if the VOD market continues as it
is, there are more consequences at stake for the local industry than lack of access.

The frustration reected in global fandom and consumer rights discourse is understandable,
but as citizens accessing media, we have to think bigger and question the entire business
model and regulatory framework underlying the VOD market in Australia. The market is
currently failing the content especially Australian content, which has been madly
underserved in terms of both commissioning new work and resurfacing adored older fare.
Theres not one problem to solve here: what we have is a messy, nascent, under-regulated
VOD market, which relies on a bunk piece of government tech infrastructure, for which
were all paying around $10 a month to a number of dierent services, receiving varying
levels of unimaginative programming, shoddy reliability and customer service resulting in
debacles like Foxtel Nows this week.

So much for the brave new world of unfettered access, speedy streams and unlimited
choice.

The market doesnt magically x itself. It never has and digital technology wont be the
exception to that. Free-to-air and cable television have traditionally been highly regulated,
particularly in terms of local content and to ensure accessibility. But a similar approach to
regulating the online streaming world hasnt been taken seriously by policymakers, and the
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) the regulator hasnt yet gone
far enough in its guidelines for consumer safeguards and regulatory best practice in the VOD
landscape.

A lack of cultural and commercial imagination is holding back Australian digital viewing
culture. Still isolated, still a little parochial, Australia isnt lacking in options for how to view,
but theres little forward thinking about whats possible. Platforms and broadcasters are
getting away with oering too little for too much, and audiences have had a gutful, but dont
really expect things to change.

We need more breadth of content. We need better curation, commissioning and consumer
technology. VOD in Australia could be amazing and not just if SBS and Foxtel Now bandaid
the recent bugs. There could be a 24-hour Rage channel on iView, for instance. Netix could
license every Claudia Karvan show, and give Briggs his own series. Stan could commission
new a raft of shows from emerging, diverse Australian voices who dont just follow the
template of every medical soap opera weve already seen. The industry could commit to a
minimum of local content, and contribute to digitising the screen industrys unearthed,
older treasures. The government could commit to more funding for iView, to transform it
into a more competitive, free public service with more abundant content. And ACMA could
better outline basic tech and audiovisual standards for platforms to adhere to.

The audiences are there, and so is the technology. What are we going to do with it?

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Topics
Television
Foxtel
SBS
Video on demand
Australian media
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