Just think - you could be the ABC executives who sold the distribution rights to Bluey to the BBC for basically nothing.
Ah, who am I kidding? They probably got a promotion for their brilliance at saving the ABC money by sending production costs on to the BBC.
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To be fair, I doubt the ABC would've had an idea of how big it would be when it was commissioned.
Also, it was in the shows best interests to have the BBC distribute the show as they are in a better position to showcase the show to international broadcasters than the ABC. Without the BBC's input, who knows how big the show would've been.
The ABC gets nothing from the show.
Even if the ABC had no idea or the BBC could do more. The ABC still gets nothing from it, because the BBC has the global commercial rights.
If the ABC had negotiated a share of those rights, then fair enough, but they didn't even try.
Making money is not the ABCs remit, they exist to make content for the Australian people. Those rights were the price for the BBC to be involved and get the show made.
Also I'm sure there were plenty of negotiations to arrive at a 60-40 split. How do you know they didn't try?
There are FOI emails that show that the ABC didn't negotiate the commercial rights.
And there are just as many emails where the ABC was deciding whether to cancel shows because of budget cuts.
So none? Because that's the amount of emails they had negotiating commercial rights.
It isn't that the BBC has commercial rights. It's that the ABC didn't even bother trying for a percentage of it.
It is OK to simply admit that you have no idea of what was or wasn't discussed.
They’ve pointed you to the fact the rights weren’t negotiated in the FoI emails. You are the one saying they did negotiate with absolutely no evidence
What? They directly answered the question they were responding to? They asked if they had seen the emails discussing the negotiations and they clearly had.
You thenentioned other emails about canceling shows, but that wasn't what op was responding to.
It's ok if you didn't understand what was happening, but there's no need to be rude.
Their comment said there were no emails relating to the negotiations. If they say there are no emails, how do you come to the conclusion that the (apparently non-existent) emails were seen by the same person?
Meanwhile, I have worked in and around TV production for most of the last 25 years. Including stints at the ABC, both directly and indirectly.
But I'm sure any random on Reddit can reference FOI and claim to be an expert.
So go on then. What am I missing?
Did they need to? Is a 60-40 split pretty well expected in these deals? Remember if this show was as popular as Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom (which is about as popular as you'd expect it to get on average) then would we be having this conversation?
Sure we wouldn't be having this conversation. But we are, because they didn't try and negotiate for at least any of the commercial rights.
Negotiate for some of the rights. If it fails, fair enough. If it doesn't there's some cash that can then be used on the next project.
But what's the context? Is 60-40 already a great deal? Is it industry standard? Remember the ABC aren't thinking of commercial interests their aim is to get the content made.
Industry standard.
They want to get content made, which is fair. You get more content made when you also have some revenue stream coming in when you get the chance.
ABC: We want an 80/20 split our way on this unproven show.
BBC: Sure !
cough
Didn't they have commercial rights to begin with? Sounds like they were never at the table. So what do people expect them to do.
Negotiate for a share of them to begin with. They didn't do that.
You know how you can make more content for the Australian people? By carving off some of the billions in revenue the BBC is generating in Bluey merchandising and funnelling it back into production.
Making money isn't the BBCs remit either.
They equity invest in “ABC Originals” all the time (giving them a share of copyright ownership and profits)s They chose not to with Bluey.
Maybe there's a bit of quid pro quo? Maybe ABC gets some BBC content cheaply?
To be fair, it's quite literally your job to understand the potential for these things and assess them accordingly if you're responsible for selling rights to TV shows.
We burn millions every year on politicians who do nothing. At least we'd have a fuckin cartoon to show for it.
Sure would have been nice to pay for all those fuckers from commercial rights instead of the our pocket.
ABC managing director spoke about this at the press doing recently
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-19/abc-managing-director-addresses-national-press-club/106027282
Nobody ever knows how big something will be and that’s the exact kind of thinking that ensures you will never be a part of it.
I always hear the "well it likely wouldn't have been as big without the BBC" etc.
Which is likely fair.
The issue is that the ABC was still paying for 60% of the show, while giving up global rights to the show.
In the worst case scenario where the show flops. The ABC is still on the hook for 60% of the costs.
In the best case scenario, which ended up happening. The ABC paid for 60% of it and had no way of recouping anything, because they gave away the rights to actually make money from it.
The ABC aren't in it to make a profit, they exist to make content for the people of Australia. They needed 40% of the budget and BBCs price was distribution and merchandising rights. If the ABC got to keep some of those rights the amount they got from the BBC would be less. BBC were lucky it turned out bigger than Peppa Pig or they might've had another Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom which I'm sure brings in some distribution money but nothing like the merch money from Bluey.
They aren't in it to make a profit sure.
They still gave up the global commercial rights to it, in exchange for less than half the money needed to make it.
They also didn't bother to try and negotiate for those rights. It's not like they tried and the BBC said no etc. They just gave them up without any negotiation at all.
It's still a terrible deal overall.
The ABC executive suite was basically filled with LNP lackeys whose remit was to enshittify it and move from neutral to right skewed broadcasting.
This allows them to turn around say look how bad it is, what a waste of funding…. to push neoliberal nixon/howard ideals aka corporate interests.
So I am not surprised in the least that they can’t do the actual job properly to make decisions in the public interest.
But only because it was a massive hit. All these hindsight arguments are pointless.
Again. If the show flopped, the ABC was still on the hook for 60% of production costs.
If the show was a hit, the ABC didn't bother negotiating for any commercial rights.
Even if the ABC isn't in it to make a profit.
In the worst case scenario, it costs the Australian taxpayer money, in the best case, it costs the Australian taxpayer money that has no route to being recouped, and then used to produce more content.
It's not a hindsight argument. It's an argument of the ABC at the time making a terrible deal even with the knowledge at the time.
How is that the worse case? A worse case would be it gets a smaller budget, worse distribution support, is unadulterated trash, no one watches it, and Australian media is continued to be viewed as the laughing stock of the world as it has for the last 15+ years.
They probably could have made it by themselves, or negotiated for global rights etc, but then it’s going to come out of a budget elsewhere (for which they have no chance of getting BBC funding) meaning shows like playschool has less or Big Cuz and Little J doesn’t get made at all.
They are not a commercial business they don't need to worry about recouping anything.
Sure, doesn't mean they have to throw away legitimate chances too.
and people wonder why their is a large voice want to cut the ABCs funding for being wasteful. Being a tax payer funded organisation isn’t an excuse to made bad commercial decision. Sure their goal isn’t profit making like Sky, but they should still be looking after the best interests of the taxpayers money they’re using.
You don't need to worry about commenting since you have no idea. This is so wrong.
But any profits the ABC makes from Bluey is money they can spend on higher quality or volume productions. Let’s not forget the endless budget cuts to the ABC under the last government.
Why are you upvoted. Profit is a post revenue calculation. The ABC needs revenue, it's up to them to determine if it's profit related.
This is a complete fuck up and I'm confused why anyone would think otherwise...
I'd you are in business and you sell off a potentially valuable asset, you think about whether what you are getting is worthwhile as a lump sum or as an ongoing payment, i.e. profit share or royalty. Not taking a royalty on a popular show seems like a bad business decision.
If you sell something for relatively nothing then why not negotiate a potential royalty just in case.
Go watch shark tank, this is literally a shake tank case study.
They screwed up, it was bad business and that's it.
Bringing up shark tank in a discussion about Government funded Art is insanity. Neither Government or Art is improved by trying to treat it like a business.
I think there's two reasons.
People understand that hindsight is 20-20
People believe the ABC is a service not a business
They do get local merchandising profits though don't they?
They can't be that inept that they'd give that up.
I hate to say this but as far as I can tell, the ABC doesn't have any merchandising rights to Bluey. It's been described as a "billion-dollar blunder" in media coverage. It's not even that they were out-negotiated by the BBC - they never even discussed merchandising in any of the documents obtained via FOI.
That's a George Lucas / 20th Century Fox merchandising rights level blunder right there lol.
ABC only licensed the rights to broadcast it FTA in Australia. BBC took the international distribution rights, which included merchandising.
BBC have the commercial rights globally.
ABC only have the Australian distribution of the show itself.
[deleted]
Domestic rights to distribution. Which is nothing.
The ABC don't have the domestic rights to anything else.
ABC wouldn’t have taken it global. They don’t have the capability to.
They could’ve taken Australian merchandise rights, or equity invested in it to get a share of profits.
How ? Its a cartoon, how hard could it be to sell to international broadcasters
This isn't the day of mailing tapes cross the pacific. We've got the internet on computers & such.
Then the BBC blocked the ABC from broadcasting new episodes of Dr Who forcing people to pay Disney for the privilege despite the ABC basically keeping that series alive for decades by paying rentals to repeat the show at 6 pm almost continuously through the 70s 80s and 90s
to be fair, that was the BBC asking Di$ney for funding to produce Dr Who, so Di$ney asked for exclusivity in screening it, except in the UK where it and all the old episodes are available on BBC iPlayer. Yay for VPNs.
but it did feel like a slap in the face.
BBC iPlayer recognises my VPN (PIA), and blocks me. Does your VPN work?
Change your device’s time to the UK’s time
And the ABC doesn't have the rights to the 2005 revival either.
And Bluey was the most streamed show in America last year and the year before that.
(I don't actually know the ins and outs of this, but this is my guess on the thinking at the time).
"Poverty breeds poverty".
More obvious answer to me is that an organisation that had it's funding cut and had staff layoffs, felt compelled to make the short-term financial decision of selling the merchandise rights at the outset, to just afford even getting it made.
An organisation more confident and stable in it's funding, would be able to make the better long term decisions.
Please. The ABC gets a billion dollars every year from the taxpayer
Considering what it delivers for that money, it's a steal. If the question is that more money should be invested in it so that it can commercialise high quality IP that it's capable of producing, an excellent case can be made for it. Unlike the commercial media networks.
You can sell the rights and hold a share of the upside.
Bluey is essentially the same as Australian Gas.
Thats a brand new sentence right there.
Bluey is cultural pressure.
Or you could be Xerox who essentially invented the modern computer (Xerox Alto) and did nothing with it.
Or Kodak who invented the digital camera and went bankrupt in 2012.
What annoys me is merchandising rights. You have this lovingly handicrafted kids show with ridiculous camera angles and detail and unique songs, yet the toys are some of the cheapest temu shit you've ever seen. The game wasn't even Australian and the lego looks like a fake bookleg.
It is still produced here in Australia, in Brisbane So there are a good number of people employed at Ludo and associated places. So there is still economic impact.
If you're having a bad day, maybe go watch the cricket episode of Bluey.. or play the Chattermax song.
Or head down to Hammerbarn for a snag.
Or could be even worse, could be living in the US.
Co-funding content with the BBC is the norm. Years back if ABC had fully funded a dog cartoon people would be up in arms. There’s no crystal ball, it could equally have bombed like so many do.
Most things bomb or barely make their money back. That's the nature of the business. Look at Hollywood. That's how it's always operated.
There are only very few things guaranteed to make money, (Lucas doing The Phantom Menace for example) and new IP definitely doesn't come with that guarantee. Even if you load something up with famous actors, directors, writers and producers, and attach it to something that has name recognition it can flop horribly (like The Lone Ranger), destroying careers and setting a big pile of money on fire.
That doesn't mean Hollywood doesn't make money. In aggregate, every single year, it does.
Is it the norm to pay the majority of the budget for a show and sign away all commercial rights at the same time?
Yes.
How very public service.
How Australian you mean. BBC have the global agreements and reach that made it the juggernaut it is. Bluey would never have become the phenomenon it is without the BBC.
If the ABC had paid for the commercial rights to a show that flopped, there would be headlines and senate appearances for months about how the ABC was wasting taxpayer funds.
If you had any knowledge of the ABC or TV development and production, you would be aware of this. The ABC didn't sell anything to the BBC, they simply didn't buy it from Ludo, the animation company that makes Bluey.
Even as far back as shows like Seachange, the ABC's own funding only accounted for ~ 10% of the production costs, with much of the funding coming from presales and licensing to other countries.
The ABC's budgets are so slim now that it would be near impossible to find any show on the ABC where they have more than the broadcast rights.
Imagine being the specific child programming exec who passed on it… lol
The ABC would have turned Bluey into their other international groundbreaking shows like...
This is a dumb take. The ABC negotiated with the owners of the Bluey merchandising rights and as expected didn't offer the most attractive deal, when up against a bigger broadcaster with deeper pockets and international distribution. They didn't develop the program in house, they didn't have an inside track in these negotiations.
Is it not a co-production?
A co-production where the ABC paid for 60% of it, the BBC paid 40% but also got the global commercial rights to it.
The ABC has made nothing from the show.
Lot of people employed in Queensland though.
BBC and ABC co-commissioned the series.
I have a business venture I want to discuss with you.
I'll pay 40%, you pay 60%.
It might not be successful, but if it is then I'll keep all the revenue.
Deal?
Bluey is geopolitical soft power.
Haha is that you Craig Hutchison
There's nothing more Australian than selling ownership of Australian products to foreigners for pennies.
Does the ABC have distribution rights for Bluey? If so, they’re making a fortune.
Focusing on the big issues here in r/Australia today
For every TV show that's a huge international hit you probably have a hundred that don't even get beyond the pilot episode. It's a business model with a high failure rate, you have to pan through a lot of tons of stone to find that single nugget of gold.
It's also why there's a lot of remakes and sequels or adaptions of popular books or use popular actors to try to lower the probability of failure.
I think if the ABC didn't need the BBCs funding and global position they could have negotiated a better deal.
I think Australia has a lot of great scientific and cultural innovation, but a lot of our venture capital comes from overseas, so Australia doesn't actually benefit from it as much.
The ABC by charter is not for profit. Without the BBC’s distribution deal, the show probably wouldn’t have been made. I don’t know what their exact contract looks like of course, but the production company that created the show and partnered with ABC & BBC would be doing quite fine, the creators, artists and creatives are all compensated very well, and their tax money will end up back in the governments hands anyway. But again, the ABC is not for profit and that is a good thing.
Neither is the BBC? Both are public broadcasters.
The big difference between the abc and the bbc - BBC Studios a commercial subsidiary sells content internationally and does make profits — these are reinvested back into the BBC’s public services
Hands up everyone in the chat with a qualified opinion e.g. who has developed a children’s TV, then negotiated a deal with a Broadcaster to fund it, got it made, broadcast and it was a global success?
Ahh, this old schtick. If you haven't done it yourself then you aren't entitled to an opinion.
Are you a doctor or a health economist? If not then you better not have an opinion on Medicare.
Have you worked as a mining executive? If not then don't talk about royalties or environmental impact.
Copy and paste for pretty much every issue.
Oh, and don't even think about voting along the lines of any issue you haven't personally had at least a decade of experience with.
Is anyone in this chat remotely close to qualified to give an informed opinion is an OK question to ask.
Sure it's an ok question.
But it's not a question. It's a statement phrased as a question.
Maybe we should listen to the experts that made this atrocious decision?
You realise if they didn't make that deal ABC would not have fully funded it.
And ABC and the producers have done well.
We’re the same grovelling worms proactively offering up our lunch money to the big kids that we were in 1914 when we asked if we could pretty please join WWI and help Daddy, we’ll even pay for everything, please just command us, before the UK had even declared war.
The series might as well end with Bluey getting gassed at Ypres.
100% agree, OP. ABC senior execs have been fucked since Howard.
Gleeson's 'whiter buttrose' is the best takedown I've seen anywhere.
And the BBC should be a champ and offer to sort out a new $ split. Unless they want us to hold a grudge. Can we smash them for fees for the cricket and Olympic Games?
I think we should be asking what kind of organization the BBC is that it ripped us off to this extent.
They're not friends, that's for sure.
The ABCs only job is to spend $1b a year…. easiest job in the country.
The ABC is not in the business of making money.
They are a talent incubator, which is why we publicly fund them, just like the public funds all kinds of initiatives for other industries.
Bluey is an ABC success story because it generates all kinds of opportunities and jobs for Australians.
Isn’t the abc not allowed to make money from it or something? Something to do with if they could do that funding would just be attributed to the content that could make them the most money not the content that is the best? Whatever the fuck that means
Just finding that out now?
who gives a shit
Australian taxpayers?
this taxpayer has bigger things on his mind than Bluey mate
who gives a shit
you do because I disrespected your favourite show
Watched TV for the first time in about 20 years on Christmas Day. 'Home Alone'. Next year, 'Bluey' for sure. Thanks for the reco.
so you're a boomer who scrutinizes ABC finances. you should check out Sky News you'd love it mate
Got it. Now back your land filling son.
The BBC sure knows a thing or two about quality productions.
Until they killed Top Gear after Clarkson, Hammond, and May left.