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Bluey has been the most streamed show in the United States for the past two years, but this homegrown success story has overshadowed a stark decline in Australian-made children’s television, according to new research.

Screen Australia’s Screen Currency 2026 report, published on Wednesday, found that the average screen time dedicated to children’s TV broadcasting was 65 hours per year between 2021 and 2024 – a 42% drop on the average between 2000 and 2020.

The decline was driven by a shift in viewing behaviour and reduced commissioning by commercial networks.

Channels Seven, Nine and Ten were once required to broadcast a minimum 260 hours of children’s programs per year, but since this government quota was dropped the free-to-air commercial networks have “effectively stopped commissioning the genre”, the report said. First-run children’s TV reach in Australia in 2025 was predominantly made by the ABC, it said, with limited programming by SBS/NITV and Seven.

It’s not just children’s TV that commercial broadcasters are eschewing either; Australian TV drama is now more likely to be made by streaming services than the commercial networks. In total, an average of 403 hours of Australian TV drama was broadcast each year between 2020 and 2024, a 12.4% decline on the average between 2000 and 2019.

Part of the reason why streaming services are investing cash in this genre is because they’re obliged to: under Australian law they must invest at least 10% of their total Australian program expenditure, or 7.5% of their Australian revenue, in new Australian drama, children’s programs, documentary, arts and educational content.

Netflix, Stan and Amazon Prime Video are now “significant investors” in Australian content, particularly for drama, the report found, whereas Australia’s commercial broadcasters are spending their budgets on news, current affairs, lifestyle and sports programs.

The Screen Currency report, which surveyed more than 13,550 respondents, found Australian audiences are increasingly led to shows by algorithms, despite simultaneously reporting that they did not trust algorithms. Only 36% said they found it “easy to locate” Australian-made content – and though 84% of responders said they valued local content as important, the majority spent less than a third of their viewing time watching Australian-made film or television.

Netflix came out on top as the most-watched platform in Australia, with 69% of respondents reporting they used the streaming service. Channel Seven, Nine and Network Ten were the second most-watched for all age groups, with a combined 63% tuning in to the commercial networks, followed by 56% watching content on YouTube.

While TV drama has dipped, the report found more drama feature films are being made on average per year – a 43% increase when comparing the number of drama films commissioned between 2021 and 2024 to what was commissioned between 2000 and 2020 – despite box office returns being “in decline over the past decade”.

In general, Screen Australia found that the Australian screen and games sector is growing, contributing more than $11bn to the economy in the financial year 2023-24 and directly employing nearly 70,000 people in 2024-25.