Late Night Live — Full program podcast · ABC Australia

Funding Australian TV, and conspiracy theories in Irish politics

·55 min·3 clips

Australia’s TV drama was once funded by advertising, quotas, and $1 billion in annual spend.

Late Night Live starts with a blunt policy problem. The program asks how Australian film and television production can be called a boom when spending on adult drama made in Australia telling Australian stories is at a record, but the number of hours made has collapsed, and when spending on kids’ shows is said to be in free fall. The answer is not neat. The conversation treats the screen sector as an industry under strain from contractor work, unstable demand, and digital disruption, while still keeping room for the public-value case for Australian stories, cultural visibility, and the soft power that comes with exportable work. The tone stays wary. David Meyer keeps asking what should count as an Australian story, which platforms are actually carrying local work, and whether the current funding model fits the world audiences live in now. The show does not pretend every problem has a fix. Instead, it lets the mismatch sit there: more money in one lane, fewer hours in another, and an industry that sounds busy until the numbers are checked. Then the mood shifts to Ireland. David Meyer introduces polling from last year’s elections that suggested an unexpectedly large share of voters were willing to see the world through conspiracy. That turn is handled carefully. The program avoids cheap mockery and instead uses Jane Souter's work on conspiracy belief to ask what such beliefs say about trust, politics, and the stories people tell themselves when institutions feel unconvincing. The interview is patient. It leaves room for qualification and for the awkward fact that conspiracy thinking is not a fringe curiosity once it is showing up in election polling. Dry humour comes through, but it does not soften the subject too much. The result is an hour that moves from screen economics to political suspicion without losing its seriousness. It is interested in institutions. It is also interested in the human appetite for plots, enemies, and explanations that feel truer than official language. The closing stretch keeps that balance. By the end, the episode feels less like two disconnected items and more like a study in how culture, money, and mistrust shape public life.

As heard by us

Australian screen policy and Irish conspiracy polling, treated with care and a clear sense of consequence.

Late Night Live begins with a blunt look at Australia's screen industry split: adult drama spending is at a record, kids' production has fallen sharply, and the hours being made have dropped with it.

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Why you'd press play

For a thoughtful double bill on screen economics and conspiracy belief, told without fluff.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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