UK and other overseas producers looking to co-produce drama with Australian partners could be hit by changes to the rules allowing international co-productions to be included in original local output quotas, writes Sandy George.
The Australian Film Commission board is due to look at the issue at its next monthly meeting, and may rule that international co-productions are no longer eligible for the commercial networks' annual quotas for Australian-made drama.

International co-productions have, in small numbers, been part of Australian schedules for a long time. But recently the number of long-running co-produced series has been rising.

Concerns arose over Hallmark's Australian/UK co-production, Moby Dick, in 1997, but escalated with the recent arrival of the 22-part series Beastmaster for location shooting in Queensland.

Beastmaster is an Australian/Canadian production from Los Angeles-based Coote Hayes Productions, the company that bought out the TV interests of Australian entertainment group Village Roadshow Pictures in October last year.

The Australian production community is extremely sensitive to local production quotas being endangered by free trade.

But Pacific Film & Television Commission head Robin James said he believed some people were out of step with the real world of complex financing deals and the economic benefits of such production.

Queensland, for instance, has always relied heavily on overseas productions to boost its local slate.