The ABC’s $1 Billion Bluey Blunder

If intellectual property is the new oil, then children’s entertainment is a chamberous and commercially potent reserve.

Between the global distribution deals, theme park tie-ins, and a virtually inexhaustible appetite for licensed merchandise – any bleeding heart environmentalist’s worst nightmare – a beloved animated series isn’t so much a creative endeavour as it is a multi-billion-dollar ecosystem.

With the added benefit of being one of the more tolerable options for parents like the Peabody-winning, Brisbane-born Bluey, you can easily see why the Ludo Studio-produced series – jointly commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – virtually prints money.

“The idea was to do a co-viewing show,” creator Joe Brumm (Charlie & Lola, Peppa Pig) explained to PerthNow.

“You’ve probably sat through some pretty dire cartoons – the majority of them are just an assault. I wanted to do something that was not conflict-driven, that involved the parents, and shows the laughter and real warmth that you get as a family.”

“To me, it’s very beautiful, and I wanted to show that to the world. It was a gamble, but I thought kids and adults would respond to it.”

So much so that when the animated blue heeler juggernaut exploded into worldwide prominence, one might’ve assumed the ABC had positioned itself accordingly.

It had not.

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“Giving Up” The Dollarbucks

Now, before we put on our Murdoch hats and get to bashing Australia’s oft-maligned, taxpayer-funded broadcaster, it is worth noting that – while prosaic and rather astonishing – it isn’t entirely their fault. And the explanation is two-fold:

1. The ABC’s remit as a public broadcaster doesn’t typically involve monetising IP to the hilt. Hence, letting the BBC stake a claim on the international distribution and merchandising rights in exchange for 30% of production funding (across the initial 52 seven-minute episodes).
2. Broadly speaking, a far-reaching behemoth like the BBC is obviously better equipped to navigate the global expansion of a property than the ABC. In other words, without the British counterpart’s commercial intervention, there’s simply no telling how successful Bluey would’ve become in an alternate timeline.

That being said, the ABC’s decision not to negotiate for partial overseas licensing rights – or even a percentage in the merchandising returns – reflects an institutional oversight at best (and a glaring lack of vision/woeful inability to capitalise on a golden goose at worst).

Bluey was a key pillar in driving the BBC’s record £2.16 billion ($4.4 billion) worth of sales from commercial operations last year, with branding deals for everything from headphones to baked beans.

“Bluey’s role is quite enormous,” Suzy Raia, who heads global consumer products at BBC Studios (the corporation’s commercial arm), told The Guardian.

“We’re just at the beginning of something that I hope will be a generation-defining brand for children and then families today. From a retail sales standpoint, we are generating about £2.7 billion in global retail sales across our entire portfolio, and Bluey is a really, really big chunk of that.”

Assuming a “really, really big chunk of that” entails something as conservative as 25%, that would amount to roughly $1.1 billion AUD – and keep in mind, that’s just merchandising alone. For context, the ABC receives approximately $1 billion in taxpayer funding each year.

Marketing expert Mark Ritson outlined to The Courier: “Licensing is as close as you get to pure money. Once you sign a deal, you don’t have to make the frisbee or the t-shirt. It’s just cash, it’s pure margin.”

Throw in the streaming and syndication contracts with Disney, iQiyi (China’s Netflix), and every other manner of foreign platforms, and you can begin to realise the enormity of this homegrown picture.

The silver lining is that Melbourne manufacturer, Moose Toys, holds a long-term agreement to produce the franchise’s 338-item merchandise range. So at the very least, an Aussie company is still getting some juice from the squeeze.

Bluey’s Global Conquest In Numbers

On Disney+ alone, Bluey consistently ranks among the top children’s shows and was the most-streamed property overall with just under 56 billion minutes viewed in 2024 (across all genres) – beating Grey’s Anatomy, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and any of the serialised Marvel slop.

The year prior, it logged over 43 billion minutes viewed, surpassing long-running category incumbents like Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol.

As for the official Bluey YouTube channel, to date, it boasts in excess of 12 million subscribers, with episodes uploaded by outside channels – from ABC Kids to non-official players – regularly commanding millions of views.

Bluey merchandise, on the other hand, flies off shelves with the kind of consistency most brands can only dream of. One US-based toy retailer described demand as “near-irrational.” A chunk out of the BBC’s £2.7 billion aside, the tally runs to over 20 million books sold in more than 20 languages with a footprint in 49+ countries.

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I remember sitting there with the Head of Children’s, and it almost starts like a joke… a little-known producer walks through the door and says ‘Have I got something for you!’ and it’s a 2D animation about a puppy,” former ABC Managing Director, David Anderson, recalled in a radio interview.

“I was advised that we thought it would work. We thought it would bring joy to people. Who knew it was a unicorn from that moment?”

A Bluey movie, slated for a 2027 release under the Disney banner, is currently being penned by Joe Brumm, while Bluey-themed cruises set sail this year.

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Not The First Time (And Certainly Won’t Be The Last)

Failing to grasp the extent of an IP’s commercial value while in said IP’s cultural orbit is by no means a new phenomenon.

Perhaps most notably, members of the original Star Wars cast – including Sir Alec Guinness, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford – signed contracts that paid them modestly for their roles in what was, at the time, considered a high-risk science fiction project destined for the bargain bins. Even by its own studio partner, 20th Century Fox.

Instead, they were granted a generous percentage of the merchandising rights, given that these products were mostly crafted in their likeness. Star Wars sold a staggering US$100 million worth of toys during the first year they were on shelves.

Though nothing compared to what the franchise progenitor banked.

George Lucas surrendered US$500,000 from his A New Hope director’s salary to retain controlling merchandise rights. The toys alone have generated US$20+ billion in global retail sales from 1977 to 2012 (not adjusted for inflation), with Disney-era licensed toy products now bringing in about US$3 billion annually.

Fun fact: only 22% of all Star Wars-related revenue over the years has come from the box office.

Another cautionary tale is that of Winnie the Pooh. A.A. Milne’s beloved bear was handed over to Disney in a piecemeal series of licensing agreements that left his estate with only a fraction of the returns.

Today, Winnie the Pooh is among Disney’s top-grossing franchises, having generated over US$75 billion in global retail sales (also not adjusted for inflation) since its acquisition. That’s more than the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe and Harry Potter combined.

By contrast, contemporary players are increasingly attuned to the value of character-driven IP.

The creators of Peppa Pig were famously savvy, parlaying their hit show into Entertainment One’s global licensing empire before the entire enchilada was sold to Hasbro for US$3.8 billion circa 2019. That deal was apparently structured as much around the strength of the pig’s merchandising footprint as the show itself.

It’s only a matter of time before Bluey, Bingo, Bandit, and Chilli enjoy the same fate… and unless something drastically changes between now and then, the ABC won’t see a single cent of it.