The ABC’s announcement of a Treehouse TV adaptation is wonderful news — but it’s only possible because of a special funding injection. With Australian children’s TV in long-term decline, we need more than one-off investments.
The ABC’s announcement that it will adapt Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton’s Treehouse series for the screen is the kind of news that makes Australian families smile. The books, now spanning 169 and counting, have been a fixture of Australian childhood for over two decades, beloved for their anarchic humour, their respect for kids, and their thoroughly Australian larrikin spirit. Werner Film Productions, the team behind The Newsreader and Crazy Fun Park, will bring them to screen. It feels like a natural fit.
But the Treehouse announcement is one piece of a much larger picture. ABC Managing Director Hugh Marks recently told a Senate Committee that the ABC’s 2026 content slate will feature over 100 new and returning titles: drama, comedy, children’s and family content, new original formats and expanded long form audio storytelling. That is an ambitious, exciting pipeline, and it matters enormously.
Why Australian children’s TV matters
Research from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation drawn from a four year study involving children, parents, teachers and producers makes the case powerfully. Nine out of ten Australians who watched Australian children’s content as kids included local shows among their favourites. Respondents described a sense of belonging, of hearing their own accents, of seeing their own lives reflected back at them. As one Victorian woman put it, with so much content coming from overseas, it was wonderful to hear people talking in her accent and telling her stories.
That experience shapes identity in ways that last. Australian children’s TV, the research found, does not just reflect what it means to be Australian, it actively shapes it. Children who watch a heavy diet of American content sometimes adopt American accents and expressions without realising it. One eight year old explained she wanted to watch more Australian television because she kept speaking American and didn’t want to.
The research also confirms what many of us already feel: Australian children’s TV has a distinctive character that audiences value deeply. Relatability, humour, respect for the child audience, and a uniquely Australian blend of the ordinary and the strange. These are the qualities that made Round the Twist, Play School, Lift Off and Bananas in Pyjamas so beloved. And they are the qualities that made Bluey a global phenomenon.
The Bluey lesson
Bluey is the proof point the whole industry should be citing. Produced with Australian public funding through the ABC, it became one of the most watched children’s shows on the planet — beloved in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and beyond. Producers interviewed for the foundation’s research identified Bluey specifically as demonstrating the global potential of culturally specific Australian storytelling. The more distinctively Australian a show is, the more it stands out in a crowded global market.
The Treehouse could follow that path. But the research also carries a warning: outside a handful of standout shows, audiences feel there is now a general shortage of Australian children’s content. One Victorian parent said shows like Bluey are few and far between and that we need more of them.
And let’s hope the ABC learnt its lesson on the ownership rights!
How we got here
That shortage has a clear cause. In 2020, the federal government removed quotas requiring commercial networks to broadcast hundreds of hours of Australian children’s content each year. What began as a temporary COVID measure became permanent policy. By 2023-24, commercial broadcasters were funding virtaully no local children’s drama at all. The ABC has been doing all the heavy lifting – and doing it on a budget that has fallen 13.7% in real terms over the past decade.
The result is that the ABC’s 2026 content slate, with its 100 titles and the joy of Treehouse, has only been made possible by a targeted $50 million federal investment. Welcome as it is, that should not be the normal state of affairs.
A moment worth building on
ABC Chair Kim Williams has been clear that the ABC needs a genuine plan for renewal and investment, not just survival funding. The upcoming federal budget is the immediate test. Even with the welcome $50 million content injection, the ABC’s base operating funding remains under pressure, and without further commitment the broadcaster faces another difficult period from 2026 onwards. In the more medium term, the hard fought five year funding cycle must deliver real certainty, not just the appearance of it.
Australian children deserve stories that sound like them, look like them, and belong to them. The Treehouse is a wonderful start. Now let’s make sure it is not the exception.