Give the Offset to producers for factual television. Make the commercial networks adhere to quotas for documentary. The industry gets supported, high end and challenging production is sustained, and the Lush House problem goes away. Pat Laughren gets a gold star.
The genres of “factual” and “documentary” need defining more accurately, particularly since convergence demands the design of an Australian content policy suitable for the digital environment. A modest first step toward making the distinction would be to disentangle cultural policy from industry development policy.
