The more local drama, the merrier: Nine

According to the Nine’s head of drama Jo Horsburgh, the network’s slate is one of its busiest ever, even in the face of increasing production costs.

“The question from both [CEO] David Gyngell and [director of programming] Michael Healy has been ‘Can we make more and more Australian drama?’ Certainly the sense within Nine is the more, the merrier, but the reality is how long it takes to get it on to the screen, to find the projects, to get the finance together,” Horsburgh told Encore.

“We’d love to be like Hollywood but we’re not quite there yet. Ideally, we’d like to make more because Australian audiences are interested in Australian drama, and that’s been demonstrated,” she said. “Generally speaking, there have been increases in salaries and equipment, and rightly so, in the cost of scripts, which was long overdue.”

Nine launches its new police drama Cops L.A.C. this Thursday (September 2); a show that Horsburgh says is “fresh” and offers “great production values: “Cop shows are universal and there’s always a challenge when you’re doing one, because they always have to bring something that’s a bit different, without reinventing the wheel. Cops L.A.C. brings a bit of freshness and great characters.”