TV 79 Exclusive ABC TV’s Drama Package Michael Hohensee
E x c lu s iv e ABC T V ’s D ra m a Package This first week of February ABC-TV’s head of drama, Geoff Daniels, fronts up to the newly constituted Commission to outline his plans for production during 1979-80. He needs their seal of approval. Amid a climate of run-downs, cut backs and a strike, Daniels is budgeting for the same number of TV drama production hours as was made last year. He's obviously working on the premise that his hours on Auntie won't be further reduced.
E ig h ty H o u rs O nly Like last year, he's aiming for 72-80 hours, which means drama’s five production strands — three in Sydney and two in Melbourne — will each be providing 16 hours in the 12-month period from August this year to July, 1980. “Financially and resource wise,” says Daniels, “we are unable to look at more than 80 hours at the moment. We’re not considering an increase on that. “The reason 1 say that is because the lead time for drama is such that if they came along now and said here’s %Vi million for the department, it's unlikely we could get moving until the 1980’s because of the writer situation.” Daniels was appointed to his present position in March last year at a time when the drama budget was drastically reduced — “We lost about $300,000 in one day, just like that. Each year production has been less — from 156 hours in 1975 to 72 this year”.
Levels to be M a in ta in e d Nevertheless, he’s optimistic that levels will be retained for the coming production year. Daniels, enthusiastic and effusive, almost to the point of overtaking a tape recorder, quickly mentions that the 1975 production figure then included Certain Women and Bellbird. And we won’t be seeing similar productions from the ABC in the future, it simply can’t afford it, says Daniels. Maintaining the cast situation is too expensive. They're leaving “the soaps” to the commercial networks. Outlined for production is a 10 one-hour adaptation of the classic. For The Term O f FIis Natural Life. According to Daniels, a co production deal with Dorian Films in the U.S. is under negotiation now. “It's one of the most expensive TV series to be made in Australia, but it won't cost the ABC anything because we’re putting our resources in. It’s been written by an Australian girl, Patricia Payne, and the Australian Film Commission are involved with script development, plus local finance.”
Radio talkback announcer Steve Black (played by John Gregg) at work for mythical station 2KX: The Oracle. Photo: ABC-TV.
S tra ig h t fro m th e a tre Assuming the deal comes off the series will be made at the ABC studios at French's Forest, north of Sydney. Also planned for the 1979-80 production year is a series of six plays “straight from the theatre" in Australia. They will be adapted for TV and will, says Daniels, represent the best of Australian playwrights. “For example. I’d like to do The Club, but they won’t let me have it .” What's absent, says Daniels, is TV which acts as a social mirror and one of the upcoming productions to fill the gap is Time Lapse, a 13parter by Colin Free. “It’s about a bloke who’s frozen for a number of years and who is brought back to meet his contemporaries. They, of course, have faced problems which he’s been unaware o f ’. “In addition, there will be a trilogy, Players To The Gallery, which looks at the relationship between a man. his wife and their child. Firstly through his eyes, then hers and lastly through those of the lodger, who’s a homosexual. She's in the theatre and there's a lot of counterpoint, of her acting on the stage and her own dramas." ABC-TV has been approached a number of times to get a series off the ground under the title. Ombudsman — “But,” says Daniels, “it looked a dry as dust exercise. Anyway, I got a researcher who came up with some of the most extraordinary stories, 20 1 think, of which we'll select 12. We’ve taken the ombudsman factor out of it completely and we’ll give the story bones to recognised writers. They'll be 12 dramas you can call social realism." In the new production year ABC-TV also has on its schedule adaptations of two Martin Boyd's books, in quartet or trilogy presentations, a children’s serial, two classic plays and a series based loosely on Frank Moorehouse’s works. A collection of six half-hour dramas will be specially written and designed to be handled by people who have never directed before.
B u dding d ire c to rs n eed ed We're looking internally, within the ABC. to see if we can Hush out some budding directors. The aim is to try and develop new directional talent. The idea is not new, the BBC have tried it.” During the 1979 screening year (March to November) the ABC will have to provide about eight hours of first-run drama a week for 49
weeks, that’s including overseas and local programs. Daniels believes local production should represent "Australian writers, the Australian scene and the Australian social milieu. The ABC must know what's going on overseas — For example it's no good us pushing into Shakespeare when 37 plays are being done by the BBC and they're coming out here at six a year.” And they won’t push “the police stuff’ either, the commercials do all that very well. The on-air pickings for this year include Patrol Boat, Golden Soak, The Oracle, A Place In The World, Twenty Good Years, Lawson's Mates, Ride On Stranger and Twin Towers. (A brief description of these shows are listed in the new programmes article.)
Less a c tio n -d ra m a s “We were heavily criticised last year, and rightly so I think, for putting more action drama into ABC-TV. The traditional ABC audience doesn't look for action drama in our programmes. “People who never watch ABC, the total commercial viewer, prefer action drama to inter-personal drama. So, what we did, by putting on the Truckies for example, alienated to some extent our own audience. It was interesting that we doubled the male audience — between the ages 20 to 35 — but it wasn't sufficient to compensate for the fall-off and criticism we copped.” Last year the ABC got itself involved in a co production deal and made six, cinema-length telemovies with an American concern. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say the arrangement didn't work too well. Daniels was unequivocal about the venture: “Wouldn't go through it again, Christ no. But it did have some benefit. It gave us a mass of experience in a short time. Tell me what production company can put out six such movies in a year? “We did get some reputation overseas for them — they’re being sold all over the place — and technically you can’t fault them. A mass exercise, six off.” There will be no more 90-minute one-off dramas. To a certain extent this has been dictated by the new. programming policy, designed, it seems, to give the commercials a run for their money.
P rim e -tim e d ra m a s With This Day Tonight being axed at the end of ’78. situation comedy is destined to replace it at 7.30 p.m. Drama, says Daniels, will come in at 8.30 p.m. giving way to the new current affairs programme Nationwide, scheduled for Monday through Thursday, at 9.30 p.m. More or less there will be drama on every night of the week at 8.30 p.m., except for Saturday when Stuart Wagstaffs World Playhouse, moved from Thursdays, will follow Four Corners. “In the past,” said Daniels, “audiences had an hour and a half of information programme. For first time we're in at 7.30 p.m. ... no doubt the commercials will be worried.” THEATRE AUSTRALIA FEBRUARY 1979
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