A viral YouTube video calling Bluey's deal with the ABC "the shittest deal ever" has set Australian media alight — and sent Andy, Emily, and Jo straight to the recording button. The claim: zero dollars from Bluey's global success ever made it back to Australia. The reality, as the trio unpick it, is considerably more complicated.

This is a bonus episode that uses the viral moment as a jumping-off point for a much more interesting conversation: about what the ABC could realistically have done differently, why BBC Studios was able to turn Bluey into a global phenomenon when a public service broadcaster structurally couldn't, and what the whole debate exposes about the impossible tension at the heart of PSB commissioning everywhere.

• The "zero dollars back to Australia" claim doesn't hold up — Moose Toys' Bluey toy deal alone drove an estimated $800 million into the Australian economy, and is itself a strong example of the entrepreneurial Aussie spirit the video claims is absent.
• Hindsight makes Bluey look like an obvious bet — it wasn't — the deal was struck during a period of internal ABC disarray, at a moment when Disney+ was an enormous and unproven gamble. Nobody knew this would work.
• The ABC keeping the rights wouldn't automatically have produced the same outcome — BBC Studios had a specific YouTube-first, global distribution strategy and the infrastructure to execute it. The ABC still geoblocks Bluey and doesn't have a meaningful franchise team.
• Public service broadcasters are structurally constrained from thinking globally — their local taxpayer remit is both their purpose and their commercial ceiling, and that tension isn't going away.
• You can't engineer a Bluey by trying to make a Bluey — the shelf space for behemoth kids IP is finite, cycles slowly, and the creators who break through are focused on making something good, not replicating something that already exists.

The Kids Media Club podcast is open for sponsorship and we're changing things up a little bit where we're going to be offering feature episodes ahead of major industry events like Licensing Expo, Annecy ble, mipcom, Toy Fair and more.

Why don't you strategically put a conversation in the ears of your stakeholders before these events so you can warm up conversations before you go.

Reach out to us individually on LinkedIn or drop us an email at infoidsmediaclubpodcast.com.

Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of the Kids Media Club Podcast.

Hi everyone.

How is everyone doing?

This podcast has gone precisely, I don't know, 17 episodes without talking about Bluey.

It hasn't been seven, definitely not been that long since Bluey's travesty.

Yes, we have to rectify this urgently.

There was a run of, there was a run there where it was like, it was like a Kids Media Club podcast.

Bingo.

Bluey was high on the bingo card.

Yeah, Bluey Shadow.

Bluey is blown up in Australia because an entrepreneur called Charlie Gearside dropped a YouTube video calling Bluey's deal with the ABC the shittest deal ever.

Okay, I will now loving the accent, doing my Australian accent for the rest of this episode.

Well, actually, I'm not sure I can promise that anyway.

But yeah, he, he, he.

The video has gone semi viral.

I think it's at around120,000 views, which is definitely more views than our YouTube channel gets.

But it's, yeah, it, it's, it's provocative, it's persuasive.

Like he, it's definitely hit the headlines.

You know that a lot of Aussie outlets have picked it up and writing about it and it's, it's over.

Like, it's overly simplistic framing.

Like the should have steal ever is a very headline grabbing assessment.

Absolutely.

He knew what he was doing when he put that sound bite out, didn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

It even hit the shameless podcast, which is one of the big, another big Aussie exported podcast and, and, and media ip, I would say.

And listen, his, his intention is, he's really, he's open about his intention.

He is, you know, entrepreneurial minded, wants Australia to get back on top of, you know, opportunities and, and, and you know, inbound, inbound dollars and all that kind of stuff.

So yeah, do you think, do you.

Think an extra bit of, do you think it's also partly some of that energy comes from the fact that it's those bloody Brits that are making all of the money?

You bloody Brits.

Yeah.

Do you think there's a bit of national rivalry?

I don't think that's helping, let me put it that way.

Yeah, that crossed my mind actually when I, when I stepped back and looked at it.

That crossed my mind because I do.

Because joking aside, like many countries internally, there is a polarization politically about, I mean it strays into culture, it strays into content, it strays into, you know, policy as we know.

And I think this potentially is poking at that narrative as well.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of, there's political tension down in Australia as well.

I was chatting to a mate about that actually.

He lives down there.

But I will.

So like, yes, it's captured, it's captured the narrative.

Obviously this is our very specific lane and not all of it is completely accurate, I would say.

So, yeah, the thing for me, yeah, we should.

So could we unpack the.

What's his argument then in terms of why is it a terrible deal in his eyes?

Because zero, according to him, zero dollars from Bluey have gone back into, back to Australia, which isn't true.

Right, Okay.

I feel like we should put a graphic on the video here of a big X. Yeah.

Just team up, compete.

Yeah, yeah.

And the first thing I would I reach for in this is one of, so one of my other Australian muses and professional crushes, which is Muse Toys.

Right.

Moose Toys came up, got big on the Shopkins franchise that isn't as, isn't being so big these days and then took the rights for Bluey.

And it literally, I think, I think I have the article.

Right.

So $0 is not $800 million.

So that's not totally accurate.

And I will say, like Moose continues to be one.

Precisely what Charlie is describing.

Right.

Like he, he.

It is a great example of Aussie entrepreneurial spirit.

They have used obviously the leverage and the security that, that, that that level of revenue has brought in to make, you know, other cutting edge deals, I would say other innovative deals on things like Amazing Digital circus.

They have picked, been picked up.

They've picked up rights for things, for things in the creator economy.

Mark Rober.

There's a, there's a deal coming, Mr.

Beast.

Yeah, yeah.

And whilst they, they're still also doing, you know, the traditional deals.

So they did Betty Boys as well, which we did the podcast on Kids Candy.

So like, you know, they're doing, they're, they're literally embodying this entrepreneurial spirit that, that Charlie Is decrying doesn't exist in Australia to.

And really successfully doing it.

So it's not totally true.

Yeah, it's not totally true.

And whilst he's talking about it in.

In very binary terms, which again gets you attention, it also has had a halo effect which is difficult to quantify, but really has put Australian creativity back on the map in terms of, you know, for a while, I mean, we even had the Wiggles on the show, but you know, the Wiggles were synonymous with Australian creativity.

And then there was a big gap and along came Bluey and then along came amazing digital circus.

And you forgetting H2O just add water.

Because H2O just add water is literally the show that got me into kids tv and it was huge and it was amazing and it might not have been a big commercial franchise hit, but.

But like there's.

There has been other stuff, right?

There's like, there's.

Sorry, I'm very passionate about H2O.

Not usually jump in and hey girl, you're there, Joe.

But like I just.

It's.

I love the show.

Okay, we'll give you that.

But yeah, I mean, just into.

In those general terms, I don't think particularly with Bluey, it.

It's, you know, there was no flowback of attribution to Australian creativity.

I think there was and I think there has been.

So inevitably that has a halo effect.

So I mean, much as I kind of look at what Hugh Marx said and think, you know, you're being over overly simplistic just to just to poke and provoke.

Fair enough.

Sorry to Charlie Gearside, the entrepreneur and.

And him.

Yeah.

And Hugh Marx is the ABC ABC dg essentially.

Sorry.

Yes.

And he's also made some quite kind of sweeping statements about this which, you know, imply that it would have been much.

You know, they essentially gave this away.

Gave the rights away without thinking.

Well, no, this.

To get the show made.

That is what happened.

We wouldn't be in this position talking about its success had they kept it.

And that's just not the way that public service commissioning works as we know.

And do you think there's an aspect where it was the other guy that made all of these decisions that I'm replacing and I'd have.

I'd have done it completely differently.

I think that's implicit.

It was.

Yeah.

Well, no, but Bluey was, was, was the deal was done under a period where the.

The Australian abcmd that there was a kind of a disaster thrown there where then continues to be.

Yeah, that was kind of a known period.

Of disarray in the company.

But it is this thing of like, you know, listen, pommies aside, Brits aside, it's one PS public service commercial institution benefit benefiting and another commercial, you know, public commercial institution, you know, at their expense.

You know, it's, it's.

Yeah, it's definitely a difficult thing.

And you know, I think that's, that's the key thing is, you know, that's the key, that's the key lesson to learn from this is like, you know, the ABC should find a way to operate more commercially.

But it also assumes that if the ABC had taken the rights that they would have had the same success, you know, and I think there's a couple of issues with that.

It also kind of said like, again, back to this point, that like, it was such a slam dunk of obvious opportunity at the time and it really wasn't, right?

Like, no, it wasn't.

Absolutely.

I mean, I think that there's an, there's an aspect with all of these things where you're, you know, it's a bit like kind of having a blueprint for a house and then the difference between the blueprint and the, the, the final house that's built.

I mean, there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong between those two points.

And I think people often kind of view the, the finished project or the finished house and think, well, obviously that's what it would look like.

Obviously that's what would have happened.

And they don't account for all of the uncertainty and unpredictability of investing on something that's a talent based, creative project.

I'm gonna go further, I'm gonna take the house thing further because then also it assumes that you're like this basically bluey built the house and then suddenly the neighborhood also went up in terms of value, right?

Like, there's loads of other things in the ecosystem that impact and honestly, like Bluey.

Bluey.

Bluey's on Disney.

Disney.

Big Disney.

Big bright lights.

Oh, my God, it's Disney.

But like, really at the time, right, Disney was.

Linear channels were Disney's kids.

Linear channels were hemorrhaging viewers.

Disney was making probably the riskiest bet in the history of entertainment to like, I wrote this, wrote this up in my newsletter.

Riskiest bet in the, in the history of entertainment to go and like, try and catch Netflix, who were, you know, 15 years ahead of them or, you know, decades ahead of them based on their own iPad.

You know, that was really risky.

Nobody knew that was going to work.

It wasn't a sure thing.

You know, like, okay, people say, well, Disney so big it couldn't afford to ever lose, but it was a really risky thing at the time.

And also, yeah, it was a big, a big departure for them in terms of brand risk.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

And it's like all, just all of the, like to be an industry operator in that moment where like, you know, you might be doing a deal at Disney with somebody who's then losing their job.

Right.

Like, you know, like the chaos of that to be able to go, okay, well this is, this is good money.

This is a good bet.

It was very risky.

It wouldn't have been something that would have been seen as a dead search strategy by any means.

Absolutely.

And a period of real uncertainty as well in terms of what was going on in the world around that time for anyone to make any long term bets or predictions.

Exactly.

And when you're in that again, I can't extend, oh, I said extend the house analogy.

So I would just revert to hindsight having, you know, hindsight being 20 20.

But you know, what it doesn't account for is yes, that uncertainty at the time, but also the convergence of certain kind of factors that you can only really put down to luck and timing and you can never build those into a model or a blueprint.

And I made the comment on someone's LinkedIn post yesterday who was talking about this.

You know, had, had the a, you know, had Bluey not worked then it would have, you know, see be seen as that was financial prudence from the abc.

They didn't put all their eggs in this Bluey shaped basket.

It didn't work.

So the opposite is also true.

Had Bluey not been a behemoth then abc, you know, sensible don't go full in on the, on these things.

You know, this is you being a, a prudent public service broadcaster with your investment.

So I think it just, it misses out on that.

It was interesting, but assuming that the ABC would have done the same thing BBC studios did.

Right.

And BBC studios had very specific reasons why they were operating the way they were operating.

They had, hey Doggy, right.

Modest, good franchise, you know, not, it's not as big, it's not as big as Bluey knows got to, you know, that's, that's clear.

Right.

But like, and I think the BBC studios were probably looking at people going, yeah, if we could have another little hey Dougie, like we'd be quite fine with that, you know, and maybe that was what the, was being forecast in the Five year plan.

Right.

But they had built.

Hey Dougie.

Off the strength of public service content distribution, linear content distribution and YouTube distribution.

Right.

And BBC Studios were nailing YouTube.

We're getting it.

Right.

We're going with the global rights again.

We spoke with Jasmine Dawson about this probably.

I don't want to ask if.

I think it's a year ago, it's probably two years ago, you know, we spoke about this and, and it was that period in Bluey, right.

We showed that, we showed the chart at the session.

We did.

We.

Yeah, it was rightly that.

Yeah, it didn't, it didn't.

It wasn't an overnight hit.

Yeah, no, it wasn't.

It took about two years to build.

Exactly, exactly.

But in that two years, right, they're using YouTube as discovery.

Right.

And pulling people in on YouTube like the ABC at the time and still to this day continue to geoblock Bluey.

Right?

Like.

Yeah, yeah.

So I mean that's a great example of how if they had made the big bet, would they have been in a position to really turn it into the, the, the behemoth that it's become.

But it, but it is a great point because it, it's easy to say that, you know, we should have kept hold of the rights, but the ABC still, you know, like the public service in the UK to a large extent.

And so I'm not including BBC studios in this, but that it's behaving as if commissioning and scheduling would have been enough to manufacture that hit.

They wouldn't.

Yeah, it just wouldn't.

Absolutely.

So then not comparing, you know, apples to apples, which I think is, it's a shame because it kind of misses the point.

So, you know, I think this is, this is it.

It shows just how BBC studios did get it right.

Therefore there is a model to be had.

But, and do you think, and do you think the success of that means that broadcasters like ABC will now be adopting that model and that's, that's, that will become the strategy.

But, but if I'm not mistaken, the ABC don't have a big commercial team and a franchise team anymore, is that right, Emily?

There is a commercial arm like.

There is a commercial arm as far as I understand it.

But yeah, that franchise, that franchise angle is, I don't think is really truly.

But they haven't got the infrastructure to build out that franchise angle.

And like you say, whilst they still geoblock, then it doesn't feel that they've got the foundations in place to replicate a Bluey.

Even if they wanted To.

And that takes time to build and change, if it's a policy decision or.

Yeah.

And so.

And here's a.

Here's a question.

How easy.

How easy is it for.

Is there space for another Bluey or is that space currently taken by Bluey?

Do you.

I mean, in some ways, is there a way in which I. I'm all.

I'm always reminded of the.

A toy retailer when I was at Nickelodeon, where he was showing us the toys that they had, and they said they had, like, the hero shelf, and they said that basically there was a space for one new toy on that hero shelf each year because everything else was taken up with perennials.

And then.

Yeah.

And then even the newer ones had started to become more of a fixture.

So Peppa Pig now had a permanent place on that shelf.

And it feels like, how much space is there for another.

For another Bluey?

Because Bluey still isn't that.

It's still a relatively new franchise.

Yeah, listen, I think.

Totally.

Right.

And this is something again, I wrote up in another recent newsletter.

The industry tends to think of things as pipelines, right?

We do, but the audience doesn't see things as a pipeline, Right.

Like, it's more like, you know, like, it's space on a shelf.

It's finite, right.

Like, or space in a garden or whatever.

Right.

Like, you can't.

You know, there's already these huge pillars that are taking up space.

SpongeBob, Peppa Paw Patrol.

And if you want to take up space from another one of them, from one of them, then that's the air you're.

That's the air you're trying to absorb.

So you need to be really intentional about it.

I also think, you know, I hate this idea.

We're going to do another Blue.

We're going to do three Blueies.

It's like, nobody makes that happen.

Like, even the biggest toy companies in the world who are trying to do this, you know, day in, day out.

And it's.

Even people with that much speciality and that much, you know, leverage and stuff still struggle about it.

And I would say go back to.

Going back to hey, Dougie.

Right.

Like, it's.

It's about taking a swing at something and saying, okay, no, let's try and build something that is good, that we believe in, that can be, you know, obviously drive commercial, like, sense, you know, but, like, if you try and aim for Bluey from the get go, you're definitely going to fail.

And it's also the thing of, like, if you're on Run, if You're on.

If looking at rung 20 of the ladder, where Bluey is, when you're on rung two or three is completely pointless.

You can't learn anything there.

You need to look at what's happening on rungs 4, 5, 6, right.

Like, because that's the next steps in your journey.

And as we've said before, given the nature of kids content, you don't cycle through those behemoth IP quite as quickly because of the nature of how kids consume content.

So maybe those spots on the shelf do come around less frequently.

It also means that you're likely to stay there longer and actually that can be very good business, as we've said.

But it's.

The cycle is slower, potentially very lucrative, but slower.

And again, you think back to the times that I've been in close discussions with toy companies, the amount of time it takes to tool.

The amount of time, I mean, the minimum order quantities that you have to produce to make something cost effective is.

I mean, it's not to be sniffed at.

So actually you need to have built up a head of steam.

You know, these things take time to build.

You can't just go out with a hero toy set and expect to get listed in Walmart or wherever off the back of something that has not hit that level yet.

So, yeah, again, the, the narrative, whilst this whole Bluey narrative has been useful, I think it does.

It doesn't go deep enough into actually the.

The reasons behind.

But it's also like that's.

This is not something public service broadcasters should be like.

It's not.

I'm not saying that public service broadcasters shouldn't care at all about the brand potential of the kids content that they're commissioning.

You know, good kids content has the potential to go it the furthest if it's commercially viable.

But ultimately, right, you know, and you're saying like, you know, ABC would have been seen prudent if Bluey wasn't, you know, was.

If Bluey hadn't been a hit.

I mean, ultimately, the Australian ness of Bluey, right, Like that, that was probably the key thing that they were backing, right.

You know, that even if people didn't like it, they could definitely say, look how Australian we made this show.

Right?

But it's for public service broadcasters to be there to kind of take a risk on something different, right?

I think that's.

Take a risk on something different, back their local producers, not kneecap their local producers as well, like let opportunity flow for the thing to be as big as it can be.

You know, and that remains a real issue, you know that plenty of shows are commissioned by local PSPs and by local PSPs where, you know, geolat YouTube rights are on the table from the get go, which means that the show hits a linear broadcaster in a local market, it's getting that exposure, but that audience can't find any more of it on YouTube or can only find a limited amount of it on YouTube.

So it's, you know, that's, that's one of the real issues.

But also like, you know, ultimately it's not a good thing.

I'm not celebrating that the ABC aren't getting more out of Bluey.

You know, it would be better if they were having a revenue line out of it.

And I think that kind of approach of asking for at least some percentage back end, you know, which I would say is possible.

Disney has, even, even if they, like Disney don't own Bluey.

But I'm sure they're seeing some back end to the, to the deal, you know, but even a small percentage back end on something this big is still going to be meaningful.

And with any luck, this, because it's not dissimilar to the similar restrictions that CBB's and CBBC and BBC children's in the UK place.

And I'm sure that there are other public service broadcasters who they all kind of have the same restrictions on, on content that were put in place at a time when they perhaps made more sense, but they don't now.

And that, that, you know, maybe that is the negotiation and the discussion, okay, you should lobby for a percentage of backend, but then maybe you should look at the restrictions that you place on your producers that potentially preclude them from building the successes in the shape of Bluey.

Yeah, because we've heard that we've sat at Content Europe with UK producers who were saying the same thing that I used to get when I was still at the BBC.

You know, we feel hamstrung.

We feel hamstrung in being able to make a good go of this IP because of the things we sign up to being a commission from a public service broadcaster, which used to be the, you know, you'd made it, it was the absolute commissioned.

Now it's beginning to look like potentially it's not great for the commercial side of your business.

Well, this is one of the Hugh Marx quotes.

He was at a producer's summit a couple of days after all this kicked off and he was quoted extensively.

So he said, the point for me now is how do we get the industry into a position where we can keep more of that income because more of that and more of that activity in our ecosystem in Australia, rather than outsourcing it internationally.

And it's like, well, if you want to keep things in your ecosystem, you need to think outside your ecosystem.

And if you want things to be outsourced internationally, you kind of need to think internationally.

Right.

Like, because.

And that's.

And I get it, right.

This is one of the issues, the kind of the issue.

It's just like the excruciating reality of public service broadcasters.

They are so locally remitted because they are paid for by the taxpayer of the country in which they are situated.

So that that focus, which is totally understandable, neuters their ability to think globally, to operate globally to.

And that then in turn means that these types of, you know, commercial deals are really difficult, really difficult to push through because they have that look that the hyper local remit that is so set in stone, which is, you know, it is, it's set in stone.

I'm not saying it's not like it is.

Yeah.

And there's a real tension there, isn't there?

There's a real tension.

Yeah.

That kind of.

Ultimately you're arguing for, you know, keeping the, the revenue local so it goes into the local economy, yet you want to maximize the global profits and your participation in that.

Do you mean there are.

The success of Bluey doesn't work if everything is going to be local.

It needs to operate on an international market.

That's kind of why it's such a success.

So there's a bit of give and take there.

I think it's a slight paradox.

Again, it used to when you work at BBC Children's, on the public service side of the business, it's about reflecting Britishness.

So I'm sure the same remit applies to abc, reflecting the Australian ness back to Australians and Australian kids and.

But then BBC studios remit is to then take that Britishness out to the world.

So it's a kind of paradox because, you know, what really Hugh Marx was saying is, well, the rest of the world is now benefiting from us sharing our Australianness with it.

And it doesn't seem to be flowing back.

But at its very inception, that's what's baked into the public service side of things.

So it's, you know, it's kind of two.

Like you said, it's tension, it's two opposing forces.

I'm going to balance what you said about his article with a really balanced.

Kind of BBC Balance, Joe, Bring it.

Balance.

I know, sorry, it gets under your skin.

But Jenny Buckland, who's the CEO at the Australian Children's Television foundation, she made a very pragmatic kind of response to that in the Australian Financial Review, which is worth looking up.

It's paywalled.

But she kind of pushed back on what he'd said, laying out these arguments.

And it was a very, very smart piece.

I enjoyed it.

In fact, I messaged her to say how much I enjoyed it because it did add some much needed balance.

And at the end of it, she also makes a point that we've made and other commentators also, like Evan Shapiro and Marian Ron Shet about.

You know, we need to look at YouTube as well, because we know that YouTube is a necessity.

But also how do we, how do we look at YouTube?

How do we maybe pressure YouTube and Google a little bit to, in these markets, give a bit of a bump to our Australian public service content, which is a similar thing to what the CMF over in the UK are asking too.

So I imagine that's not unique to the UK and Australia.

And there are other PSBs kind of thinking, okay, we know YouTube is, is here.

We know that we need to work alongside it, but it also needs to help us.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough.

It's, it's fascinating.

And, and it means that we've had a chance to talk about Bluey on the podcast again.

We've upped our Bluey mention quota.

Bluey quota for 20, 23.

Back in the.

Back in the tolerable remit is.

Is.

Yes.

Awesome.

Well, why don't you sign off, Andy?

Okay, yeah, I'll do the sign off.

So that was a really good chat about Bluey.

What do you guys think?

Let us know in the comments.

We'd love to hear what you think about the whole Bluey ABC BBC situation.

And we'll be back at our new normal time this week.

And please don't forget to like subscribe.

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And Emily Substack will also be doing a deep dive into this whole topic of Bluey and ABC as well.

So check that out and we'll see you all next week.

But.