More than half of Australians have at least one parent born outside of the country, as a result contemporary Australian audiences are particularly interested in First Nations culture - this is the key to SBS’ Alone Australia success.
Despite SBS being confident that the local recreation of Alone was going to perform well it has exceeded the broadcaster's expectations with episode one at more than 1.2 million views - making it on track to become SBS’ most successful original.
From casting three indigenous talents to video editing which weaves in First Nations culture and production that tells the historical importance of the local Palawa people in Tasmania. Alone Australia is distinctively SBS.
Kathryn Fink, director of television at SBS, told AdNews SBS’ unique cultural angle is different to the way other networks might approach the same show.
“Internally we call it an observational documentary because there's nothing more ob-doc than people shooting their own footage, it's really authentic with no camera crews,” Fink said.
SBS’ focus on land is so present that even the extraordinarily harsh and beautiful landscape in southwest Tasmania becomes a protagonist in the show. Education about how we can ‘tread lightly on the land in an entertaining way’ was a focus.
Alone Australia cast.
“All participants had rules of engagement with the land - what they could capture and what they couldn't - this was really important, with a lot of consultation before the actual production," Fink said.
When SBS acquired the Alone licensed product - including the US now in its ninth season and multiple Scandinavian versions - in 2020 the show was immediately a hit with its younger audience.
The engaging factual show performed so well on its on-demand service the broadcaster almost instantly started recreating the international format for Australia.
Viewership has seen a relatively equal split between on demand and broadcast viewing. Episode one BVOD viewership is up to 503k of the 1.23m Total TV audience and episode two BVOD viewership 437k of the 1.196m.
“We've seen people are really engaging with the live broadcast because the show is live and there are conversations happening on social media. But then there are still a lot of people who are catching up on the on demand,” Fink said.
But as the show is just over halfway Fink says as the cast becomes more hungry and fatigued Alone will get more interesting and attract more viewers.
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