Daily Telegraph: How Sydney creators turned a ‘niche’ idea into global hit Love on the Spectrum

It is a feel-good reality TV doco series that producers were told wouldn’t work – and it was a love child born right here in Sydney.

Love on the Spectrum has changed the modern day dating game, proving viewers aren’t purely drawn to catfights and controversy on shows like Married At First Sight and Love Island – and its countless awards including seven Primetime Emmys – are proof that audiences like what they see. What better way to celebrate it than Valentine’s Day.

“It is quite amazing that it’s translated so well to huge audiences and to people who would never watch something that was about disability or that was about people who were different,” Sydney producer and director Cian O’Clery says. “We are finding audiences who would never go to that show if it was on PBS (America’s Public Broadcasting Service) and it was an issue- driven kind of thing.

“The idea from this at the get-go was always to make this show that people will enjoy watching and be entertaining and then, secretly, they’re kind of actually getting to know a population of people they might not know much about.”

It sounds very “Trojan horse” in television producer-speak – the million dollar question is often: How do we get our show to as many people as possible?

“A lot of our work is documentary, but it’s how do you get people to watch things that are really important in life, and so using some of the grammar of reality to bring them in so that they’re creating empathy and understanding and learning about people without it being presented as a news special or current affairs piece,” executive producer and fellow Sydneysider Karina Holden adds.

“And so I guess it’s sort of crossing those two worlds really and the understanding comes from people being so compelling.”

Holden and O’Clery, of NSW-based Northern Pictures, came up with the idea for Love on the Spectrum after working together on Employable Me, a documentary style TV show about jobseekers with a physical disability or neurological condition.

Love on the Spectrum first aired in Australia on the ABC in 2019 before it was picked up by global streaming giant, Netflix.

“The original reason for it to come about and the reason I guess the ABC was on board, a public broadcaster, is that this was a group of people who … there wasn’t any support for the people who wanted support in that space,” O’Clery explains.

“There was lots and lots and lots of support for disability employment, that’s a really big market, there’s so many organisations, there was nothing in the dating and relationships space. We were meeting people for a show about employment, and all these young adults, a lot of them were saying, I really want to find a job, a lot them were saying, I really want to find love, a lot of them would prefer that than finding a job to be honest.”

It took some convincing with the Aussie producers told countless times the format was “too niche” to work. The ABC took a chance, a deal was signed and when the reviews came in, the Northern Pictures team was quickly validated with critics praising the format’s unique simplicity in a reality TV market so often consumed by drama and negativity.

They had a worldwide hit on their hands as the show developed a cult-following abroad just as it had in Australia with its participants including Michael Theo, Jimmy, Sharnae, Kassandra, Ruth and Thomas the talk around the water cooler. Theo now stars in the ABC comedy Austin, and was last year nominated for a Silver Logie.

The US version again made unlikely stars out of the likes of Dani Bowman, Connor Tomlinson, Steve Spitz, Abbey Romeo and David Isaacman, each beloved for their raw, unfiltered, refreshingly honest take on dating.

The show features a range of different people from various backgrounds with Holden and O’Clery preferring the word “participants” over “contestants”, which is used on other more conventional dating shows.

“It was initially considered a niche idea that wouldn’t bring in a broad audience and so that was the hardest hurdle, convincing the ABC that it would play for all people and that within it there was something that was going to be heartwarming and have a reach beyond a niche audience,” Holden explains.

“At the time they (Netflix) were planning (reality show) Love is Blind and so it was like, ‘this is the kind of show that we do if we’re going to do love, we’re going to blow it up, it is going to be super big’, and this (Love on the Spectrum) probably wouldn’t work for us.’

“So it was a surprise that it ended up going kind of through the back doors of acquisitions really and then once it was on the service, it just got so much love and support that commissioning came on.”

Just two seasons of the original Australian version ran with the first three American seasons to have been broadcast since 2022 and a fourth to come this year. It has won countless gongs, including seven Emmy Awards.

Major Hollywood stars are fans Jack Black, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Kardashian, Ariana Grande and Katy Perry to name just a few.

The Obamas have also shown love for the program – not bad for a show made out of Northern Pictures’ unassuming converted warehouse space in our very own Redfern.

Participants in their search for love feature on camera but O’Clery’s voice is strangely familiar when sitting face-to-face. His voice is part of the format as he speaks to the hopefuls in their pursuits. He brought years of experience working in reality TV to Love on the Spectrum, having previously worked on the likes of Married At First Sight, Wife Swap, The Farmer Wants A Wife and When Love Comes To Town.

“I’d always wanted to do something like a nice dating show, a dating show that was actually real or that was completely authentic,” he says. “When we were making the other series about people with disabilities looking for work, we met so many people on the spectrum … that was eye-opening in the fact that they were really interesting, genuine, engaging people but also that there was a real diversity of … personality types and I think one of the hurdles we had to jump over was people thinking, if everyone’s on the spectrum, it’s just going to feel the same, it is just gonna be like, ‘why would we make a show where everyone’s autistic?’

“I guess if you took what you’ve absorbed in the media over the years, you’d think it’s (someone with autism) a nerdy white man who’s kind of good with computers. So I always felt from the very concept, I always believed in it but the success globally and the success with the US version, I didn’t expect that at all. I’d kind of hoped for it, but never expected it.”

One of the most powerful elements to the format is the fact Love on the Spectrum provides visibility to a community so often sidelined. And it is delivered in a way that is not

taking advantage in any sense. This is often unsaid in the show but packs a punch for viewers in the emotional scenes.

“(Participant) Abby used to cry about the fact that people would stare at her because she was talking to herself or she was doing something unusual and people would cross the street to avoid her and now people are running across the street to tell her how much they love her,” says O’Clery. “It’s just great to be able to have exposed … to be able to have shown people what autism can be and what it can mean and what these different people can show the world.

“It is such a wide spectrum and there’s plenty of people who don’t need support, there’s plenty of people who don’t want a dating coach, and don’t need help getting in the dating world, who are successful, but there’s also a lot who really do want it, are screaming for it. The amount of people you get applying for the show, and really desperate to be a part of it, is incredible.

“It is hard because there’s so many people you have to say no to who want to be part of it, but hopefully the fact that it’s out there, and people tell us it is inspiring them, it’s inspiring organisations to create different social gatherings.”

Holden agrees. “I think that there has at times been a sense these are all people who live at home and so it’s a neurotypical lens on the show?” she ponders. “It is something that we’re super, super aware of. The reality is that a lot of young adults who are dating for the first time are going to be in their 20s who haven’t left home. We live in a time where it’s not that easy to move out and especially if you’re somebody who hasn’t got a job and you have disabilities and you need to be supported, you may have a longer journey at home but at the same time we’ve had participants who live independently or live by themselves. But one of the things that we see as part of the Love on the Spectrum story is that it’s love between friends, love between family members, love between siblings, love that you’re searching for as well so it’s this whole kind of world of love and its expression and the support of people who are on that journey to love.

“So, for us, it is less about having gatekeepers or people who are there trying to protect their children or their young adults in life, it is their launching pad, it’s their encouragement, it is their support and it’s their ability to unpack what they’re thinking and feeling because they’re not in relationships and so those relationships that they have with family members become a really important way of us hearing about how they’re feeling and knowing what’s happened post-date.”

There are non-negotiables for the producers, the guiding light being to ensure participants are respected and never feel taken advantage of.

“They’ve given us this opportunity to be with them on this journey in their lives and I think that they’re keen to step into the space, they come into the space because they want to find love, they want a date, they don’t necessarily know how to do that,” Holden notes. “They get a wingman, they get a production team who helps them filter that, they go into that with support.

“We go on that ride with them but we’re very conscious of the fact that they have let us do something that is a huge responsibility, so it has to be guided with respect at all times.”

For O’Clery, who is face-to-face with participants filming and remains in regular contact with them, it is a “scary” prospect.

“We didn’t know that this was going to become such a big thing and we understand what a responsibility that is and we take that really seriously.”

The new season of Love on the Spectrum will air on Netflix later this year