Amazon Prime Video’s Jen Salke and James Farrell on Australian originals, including must-see Deadloch

With the spectre of government legislation hanging over their heads, a US streamer has put their money where their mouth is.

With so many of Amazon Prime Video’s 200 million customers locked down in the past year, the streaming service’s executives noticed a growing love for comedy.

“As the pandemic wore on and people felt stressed, they were really looking to laugh,” Amazon Studios boss Jen Salke told news.com.au. “There’s a huge appetite for people to want to get together with their family or friends and have a laugh.

“We all need a release.”

So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see three comedies among the seven Australian Originals the US company has commissioned, forming part of Amazon’s $150 million investment in local content.

Chief among them is Deadloch, a splashy new comedy from Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney, the writing duo known as The Kates, and famed for their beloved ABC series The Katering Show and Get Krack!n.

Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney.

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Deadloch is set in a small, bucolic town where a man turns up dead on the beach, leading to the team-up of a stern local detective and a brash out-of-town cop. It’s been described as a feminist noir thriller comedy that The Kates were inspired to write out of their love for Scandi crime dramas and English series Broadchurch.

In other words, Deadloch is a must-see.

The Kates’ offbeat and whip-smart sense of humour may not fit the “broadly appealing” mould commercial TV networks are looking for, but it’s exactly the kind of show Salke and Amazon Prime Video head of local originals James Farrell are hoping audiences will fall in love with.

And love is the watchword here – because it’s love that gets people talking.

“Our goal is to be the most beloved, globally,” Salke said. “So, we’re looking for love, and I think we’d rather [a series] have a smaller audience that’s incredibly passionate and in love with a show than a larger audience that just likes it and could easily be distracted to do something else.”

“Our mission is not to make your third favourite doctor show,” Farrell added. “That’s not doing anybody any good, so we want to make something that you love, that you talk about to your friends.”

Jennifer Salke joined Amazon Studios in 2018.

Amazon Studios exec James Farrell oversees local programming.

And, as Salke pointed out, sometimes those smaller series can be catapulted into the stratosphere by a loud fanbase eager to share a gem with everyone they know. Shows likeMarvelous Mrs Maisel, Fleabag and The Boys started off as fan favourites and are now firmly planted in the Zeitgeist as cultural forces.

“We’ve seen those things grow,” Salke explained. “What started as something niche and beloved by a few, those things can become bigger and really perform more like tent-poles eventually.

“We don’t shy away from something that is beloved but feels like it could be niche because we know what it can grow into.”

Catering to the taste profiles of groups of specific audiences rather than commissioning series that will appeal to the broadest viewership is something that’s really been driven by streaming platforms.

The subscription business model is vastly different to broadcast networks who have to maximise eyeballs for every hour on the schedule for the sake of ad dollars. Subscription streamers want you to love enough things (but not all things) so you keep paying that monthly fee.

The explosion of streaming platforms hasn’t led to just more TV shows and movies in quantity, but also an expansion in breadth and genre.

If you love young adult fantasy shows with a plucky female heroine, you’re catered to. If you love chilling ghost stories with an absurd sense of humour, yep, there’s something there for you. If you want to dive into a gruesome true crime docuseries, you can.

The acknowledgment that audiences vary wildly in taste and viewing habits is why Amazon Prime Video will commission multiple Australian projects when we, as a nation, has demonstrated total willingness to consume imported titles from the US, UK and beyond.

“Australian audiences – or any audience – are not a monolith,” Salke said. “We respect that people have varied tastes, we all have varied tastes. So, we really try to offer a great selection.

“I think it’s about voice and originality, and then we lean in and try to make sure we offer a diverse selection to a diverse audience.”

The seven new titles announced this week, in addition to existing Australian projects, hail from different genres – sport docos, documentary feature, drama, lifestyle, comedy and light family dramedies. That mix is intentional.

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Sarah Lambert, Holly Ringland and Bruna Papandrea are the team behind The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

“It can’t just be one thing,” Farrell said. “So, we do have to balance demographics and genres, we have to mix them. We’re trying to make sure we have content for everybody because we have a diverse customer base.”

Farrell said the series that were commissioned were chosen with Australian audiences in mind first – but how they might resonate with global audiences is definitely a factor.

“Whatever we make in Australia, it has to work in Australia. It’s not what a French customer wants us to make in Australia.

“Let’s start with the home audience and make sure it’s going to be great for those customers first. But, of course, you do think about how it’s going to travel. Stuff like The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is going to be a no-brainer in a lot of countries.

“We’re ambitious, we really want to export these stories around the world.”

Australian production crews are frequently praised for being world class – and they’re busy thanks to several high-profile projects being filmed here including movies Thor: Love and Thunder, Thirteen Lives and Mad Max: Furiosa and TV series God’s Favourite Idiot and The Tourist.

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Even with the frenzied increase in work, no one is going to say no to further investment in the Australian creative industry, especially the Federal Government who is under pressure to legislate that international media companies spend a proportion of their revenue on making TV and movies here.

In that sense, Amazon’s commitment to Australian content serves two purposes – it gets top-notch talent and projects, but it also announces that it doesn’t need the hand of government legislation to “do right” by the local industry and audiences.

While sharing a common language with the US and the UK has meant that Australian audiences have been well-served by imported TV shows and movies, it can work both ways.

“We really want to lean into the English-speaking territories [for titles that will travel around the world],” Salke said. “We believe if you create something special, unique and addictive in any of the local markets, as far as originals are concerned, it can amplify. It may not travel everywhere but we’ve seen how those things can travel.

“Great stories are great stories, and they can travel all over the world.”

And some of those great stories are Australian stories.

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