WAYNE DENNING: YE '09

NOV 2009

CARBON MEDIA EVENTS
MEDIA
Age: 39
Business Est: 2006
Number of staff: 17
Growth: 151 per cent
Turnover: $2.2 million

FOLLOWING the acquisition of Carbon Media’s production Letterbox by ABC3, the show will not only reach a wider audience at home, but will relay its educational entertainment throughout South East Asia and China.

Carbon Media Events director Wayne Denning says the $1 million show is screening on National Indigenous TV (NITV) through Foxtel until December, but will feature on ABC’s new digital kids channel at the end of 2009.

“For a little show from Brisbane to have grown an international spread, and also with the interactive and educational aspects too, we’re very proud of it,” says Denning.

With a philosophy of ‘social entrepreneurship’, Denning is all about giving back to the community, but he is adamant that his work is commercially viable, as business undertakings simply aren’t worthwhile if they can’t make a profit.

“At the core we are very much a social entrepreneurship-valuing organisation and we believe strongly in having ethical and community value with business,” he says.

“We have a commitment to indigenous children, disadvantaged children, well any children really, as well as adults who have slipped through the system.

“But it is about making a profit. It has a social entrepreneurial aspect to it, but it’s a commercial enterprise in its own right.”

Carbon Media has also just wrapped up an ABC show to be screened next year called From the Ashes, which traces the journey of an indigenous cricket team in the UK, following in the footsteps of the first Australian cricket team in 1868.

“It follows on from how in 1868 the original indigenous cricket team went there and it was the first ever interaction in sport between Australia and any country, and that was 20 years before the first Ashes,” says Denning.

“They’re a professional team of under-23 year old cricket players looking to secure contracts and be selected for their abilities.”

Denning has also been making reconnaissance trips to Asia lately as he sees great opportunities for educational television programs, with a much larger market as well.

“There are some projects we are taking to the market but we can’t reveal them as yet. Right now we’re forming broader level relationships, as we’ve just got back from a trade mission to South Korea.

“We’d like to think we could make an international co-production in Korea and South East Asia, as well as North America and Europe.”

Carbon Media operates out of the Creative Industries Precinct at QUT.