Channel Seven makes a decision on the future of medical drama RFDS as fans clamor for another season
Channel Seven has announced that production has begun on the next season of their outback drama RFDS.
The show, about the lives of the Royal Flying Doctor Service staff, will hit the screens later this year, TV Week reports.
Filming has already begun on Broken Hill, with handsome star Steve Peacocke back in the leading role.
Fans can look forward to seeing a new character this season: Emma Havie from the ABC comedy Frayed as a mental health nurse.
Meanwhile, Emma Hamilton, Justine Clarke and Ash Ricardo will reprise their roles alongside returning Heartbreak High cast members Jack Scott, Rodney Afif and Ash Hodgkinson.
Channel Seven has announced that production has begun on the next season of its outback drama RFDS, which will see star Steve Peacocke (pictured) returning as nurse Pete Emerson
The show about the lives of the Royal Flying Doctor Service staff will hit the screens later this year
It comes a year after Seven executives hinted the critically acclaimed series is likely to be renewed for a second season.
This is despite the fact that the first series, which aired in 2021, didn’t deliver blockbuster ratings for the channel.
Even so, Brook Hall, the network’s head of content planning, recently said at an industry conference last April that the show was a “success.”
According to Hall, RFDS was actually Seven’s second-highest-grossing locally-produced drama that season, behind Home and Away.
It has also been sold to six major territories ahead of its debut in August 2021.
The premiere of RFDS drew a respectable 604,000 Metro viewers, but that number dropped to 417,000 in the finale, which is not a sustainable audience for a drama series.
Filming for the new season is well underway in Broken Hill, New South Wales
RFDS has been sold to six major territories ahead of its debut in August 2021
Hall said at the time that when Metro ratings were combined with viewers in regional areas and fans watching the show on BVOD, RFDS’ average weekly viewership was one million viewers.
Hall said Channel Seven is looking at ways to keep premium local drama alive on free-to-air TV.
Filmed in remote Broken Hill, RFDS was produced by Endemol Shine Australia and purchased by PBS in the US and Channel 4 in the UK.
It was also sold to TVNZ in New Zealand, TV4 in Sweden, SBS in Belgium and Talpa in the Netherlands.