Elliot Lawry

So it went to the BBC and the BBC paid about 30% of the cost to commission it.

In return for that 30%, the BBC got the broadcast and the commercial rights everywhere outside of Australia.

And the ABC just got the broadcast rights here.

So that means all the merchandising.

So we're talking hoodies, lunchboxes, any plush toy that you see, all that money is going straight back to the BBC internationally.

Well, I was actually reading that the Australian Mint was putting out a special Bluey coin and they had to basically go and get the BBC's permission to do so because the BBC owns those rights.

Wow.

So two things kind of happened at the same time.

The first one was a entrepreneur.

His name's Charlie Gearside.

He put out a video on YouTube kind of unpacking this deal and did a bunch of analysis on it.

And that really took off.

Like, I think people were very interested in the mechanics behind it.

And shortly after that, the ABC managing director who I just spoke about, Hugh Marks, he was speaking at an event and he got asked about this deal.

most likely because that video was popping off online.

And he kind of openly criticised the deal, saying that the loss of those overseas rights had cost the Australian industry hundreds of millions of dollars.

And he said, quote, if that was able to be reinvested in the industry, that would mean more production activity, more orders, more flexibilities in the sorts of shows we do, big, little, small.

All of that would have been possible just from one show.

Yeah, it is worth noting that Hugh Marks was not working in that role at that time when the deal was signed.

So it is a bit easier for him to be critical of the previous people that were in those positions and making those calls.