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Everybody needs good Neighbours, but despite only recently signing a massive deal with Channel 5 to go all-year-round, the show could have apparently been axed without government help.
Over in Australia, Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley suggested that state funding for Neighbours helped clinched that five-year contract between Channel 5 and Fremantle Media.
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"Film Victoria was integral to that re-signing of the deal," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"[Channel 5] was umming and aahing for a little while. It's never one thing that gets the deal over the line, but without Film Victoria I think it would have been problematic."
So why is the government (and that means the Aussie taxpayer) funding things like Neighbours?
"Film Victoria works in partnership with film, television and games practitioners and industries to foster innovation and excellence in projects and people, encourage audience engagement, and promote our unique and diverse state as a filming destination," according to the blurb on the state agency's website.
As for the government, Foley added: "It's that industrial-scale production that has sustained and given a launch pad to so many people.
"Not just the obvious names, like Guy [Pearce] and Kylie [Minogue] and so on – but to writers, producers, directors, actors who work on more than 250 episodes every year.
"It's such a bedrock of Australian screen production that whatever we can do to sustain it, we will do. We're obliged to."
So Neighbours is too big to fail – and that's official government policy.
Neighbours airs weekdays on Channel 5.
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