Stan's original content slate shrank by a third and the strategy behind it is silence

Stan commissioned twelve original Australian productions in 2022. In 2023, that number was eight. The reduction was not announced. It was not discussed at Nine Entertainment’s investor briefing in August. It was not referenced in Stan’s marketing, which continued to position the platform as a home for Australian original content. The number simply changed, and the change became visible only when you counted the titles.

The four commissions that did not happen are harder to identify than the eight that did. Stan does not publish a forward slate. It does not announce development deals that do not proceed to production. The gap between twelve and eight is a gap in the public record: it exists, it is measurable, and it is unexplained.

What stayed and what went

The eight commissions that proceeded included returning series and new titles. Scrublands, based on the Chris Hammer novel, was a new commission. Bump returned for a fourth season. Year Of returned for a second. Bad Behaviour, Boy Swallows Universe, and Population 11 were new commissions at various stages of production. The slate was not empty. It was smaller.

The reduction fell disproportionately on new commissions rather than returning series. This is consistent with a risk-reduction strategy: returning series have established audiences, established production teams, and lower development costs per hour. New commissions carry higher risk and higher per-hour costs, particularly in the first season. Cutting new commissions while retaining returning series is the standard playbook for a platform reducing expenditure without appearing to reduce ambition.

Nine’s broader calculation

Stan does not exist in isolation. It is a subsidiary of Nine Entertainment, which also operates the Nine free-to-air network, the 9Now streaming platform, a portfolio of digital publishing assets, and a 60 per cent stake in Domain Group. Nine’s strategy, as articulated by CEO Mike Sneesby at multiple investor presentations, is a “total television” model in which free-to-air, streaming, and digital properties operate as an integrated ecosystem.

Within that ecosystem, Stan serves a specific function: subscriber retention. Nine’s primary revenue remains advertising, which is generated by free-to-air audiences and, increasingly, by BVOD (broadcast video on demand) audiences on 9Now. Stan’s subscription revenue is significant but secondary. The platform’s strategic value is in keeping Nine’s audience within the Nine ecosystem, particularly for demographics that have migrated away from linear television.

This framing changes the calculation for original content. If Stan’s primary function is subscriber retention rather than subscriber acquisition, then the original content slate does not need to grow. It needs to be large enough to prevent churn, distinctive enough to differentiate Stan from competitors, and cheap enough to justify within Nine’s overall content budget. Eight commissions may serve that purpose as effectively as twelve.

What the independent sector loses

The reduction from twelve to eight commissions represents approximately four fewer production opportunities for independent Australian producers. In a market where the number of local commissioning platforms is small, four commissions is not trivial. Each commission typically involves a lead producer, a showrunner, a writing team, a director or directors, and hundreds of crew positions. Four fewer commissions means four fewer teams employed, four fewer stories told, and four fewer data points for the industry to use when arguing that the production sector is healthy.

The independent production sector in Australia is sustained by a small number of commissioners: the ABC, SBS, Stan, Foxtel/Binge, Paramount+, and, to a diminishing extent, the commercial free-to-air networks. When any one of these commissioners reduces its slate, the effect is concentrated. The sector does not have enough buyers to absorb the loss. A producer whose project would have been Stan’s eleventh or twelfth commission in 2022 does not have an obvious alternative buyer in 2023.

The silence

The most notable aspect of Stan’s slate reduction is the absence of public commentary. Nine has not explained the reduction. Stan’s head of originals has not discussed it in trade press. No press release accompanied the change. The reduction happened inside the normal operations of a media company adjusting its expenditure, and it was treated as an operational detail rather than a strategic shift.

This silence is itself a strategy. Announcing a slate reduction invites questions: which shows were cut, why were they cut, is the platform reducing its commitment to Australian content, what does this mean for the production sector. By not announcing the reduction, Nine avoids those questions. The change becomes something that industry observers notice and discuss among themselves but that never enters the public conversation as a defined event.

The risk of this approach is that it erodes trust incrementally. Producers who develop projects for Stan do so with the understanding that the platform is actively commissioning. If the slate is shrinking without acknowledgement, then the development process becomes less predictable, and producers begin to hedge their investment of time and creative energy. This does not happen in a single quarter. It happens over two or three years, as the pattern becomes visible and the silence becomes its own signal.

Eight is not zero

Stan is still commissioning original Australian content. Eight productions in 2023 is more than Paramount+ commissioned locally. It is more than Disney+ commissioned. It is more than any commercial free-to-air network commissioned in drama. Stan remains one of the more significant commissioners of Australian scripted content, and reducing the slate from twelve to eight does not make it a minor player.

But the direction matters more than the number. Twelve to eight is a trend. If the 2024 slate is six, the trend becomes a trajectory, and the trajectory points toward a version of Stan that licenses international content for acquisition and commissions Australian content for regulatory compliance rather than strategic priority. Nine has given no indication that this is the plan. Nine has also given no indication that it is not.