Does An Australian Show Require Australian Viewers?
Press release time!
Filming starts on series 4 of Please Like Me
Thursday, July 7, 2016 — ABC is pleased to announce that production is underway in Melbourne on series four of the critically-acclaimed comedy/drama Please Like Me, with six new episodes.
Creator, writer and star of the show, Josh Thomas, will once again be joined by co-stars Thomas Ward (Tom), Hannah Gadsby (Hannah), Debra Lawrance (Mum), David Roberts (Dad), Caitlin Stasey (Claire), Emily Barclay (Ella), Keegan Joyce (Arnold), Renee Lim (Mae) and Josh’s incredibly talented cavoodle, John.
After making his directing debut last year, Josh steps up to direct half of the new series, with the other half helmed by the show’s award-winning original director Matthew Saville.
Since its premiere in 2013, Please Like Me has become one of Australia’s most internationally-renowned TV series, praised by critics both here and in the US where it screens on the Pivot Network. It’s been named one of the best shows of the year, two years running by America’s Entertainment Weekly.
Please Like Me has been honoured with nominations for the International Emmy Awards, the Rose d’Or Awards and the GLAAD Media Awards. Locally, it has been nominated for Logie Awards for Most Outstanding Comedy, Best Actor, Most Outstanding Light Entertainment and Most Popular Actor, and for nine AACTA Awards, winning trophies for Best Comedy or Light Entertainment Program, Best Screenplay in Television and Best Performance in a TV Comedy.
Please Like Me will be filmed on location over the next five weeks and will air later in the year.
Production Credits: Please Like Me is a Pigeon Fancier/John & Josh International production for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Participant Media’s Pivot network, made with the assistance of Film Victoria.
Also:
Rick Kalowski, ABC Head of Comedy, told TV Tonight, “It’s a testament to Please Like Me’s creative quality and brand-defining international reputation [emphasis ours] that it’s ABC’s first scripted comedy series in over 20 years to go to a fourth season – and it’s the best one yet.”
Let’s not forget:
Since its premiere in 2013, Please Like Me has become one of Australia’s most internationally-renowned TV series
Yet the Australian ratings for November 26th, 2015 – when season three of Please Like Me still had a month to run – paint a grimmer local picture:
ABC News (760,000), 7:30 (734,000), The Chaser’s Media Circus (536,000), Call Me Dad (301,000), Antiques Roadshow (227,000), Agony (225,000) and Please Like Me (113,000) comprised ABC’s night.
So we’re still asking a question we asked last year:
after the ratings it got this year, how could the ABC even show [a fourth season] with a straight face?
Because where and when they end up showing a series that ended its previous season with less than 100,000 viewers is going to be very interesting indeed.
Fucking hell.
No. It doesn’t need Australian Viewers. They’ll pick up some Film Vic or Screen Australia money, the ABC will agree to broadcast it which will allow them to get that money and the ABC will play it late at night. It will keep some very talented crew in work.
By “talented crew”, you mean director Josh Thomas, right? The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough work for our film and television crews; they’re generally considered world class and compared to other creative industries they’re generally doing ok both here and overseas. It’s that the projects that employ these very talented people here increasingly either come from overseas or are made with the overseas market in mind. There’s not much point having a local television industry if all the stuff we make here is identical to the stuff we can get from overseas.
@13 schoolyards. No I meant the Dop, Sound crew , lighting, graders, set dressers etc. . It’s as dull as dishwater but it looks a million bucks. It probably uses an Alexa with cook lenses but you still need to know what you’re doing to get that result.
Yeah, even we’ve said it looks good. Shame they can’t polish the content.