Last month, a new Amazon Prime series, Off Campus, fought its way to the top of the streaming TV pile. Releasing its first season all at once, the glossy campus drama – set around an elite hockey team at a fictional US university – racked up 36 million viewers in its first 12 days, becoming the platform’s biggest debut among women aged 18 to 34.
Its star attraction is the sweet-and-steamy romance between music major Hannah (Ella Bright) and brooding hockey star Garrett (Belmont Cameli). But sharp-eared viewers noticed something else around the hot people doing hot things: a conspicuous run of Australian music, from heavyweights like AC/DC and The Kid Laroi to indie-pop favourites George Alice and Royel Otis, plus rising name Redd.
That wasn’t an accident: the show’s ensemble includes Justin – an Australian muso played by the as-hot-as-the-rest Josh Heuston – which opened the door to a confluence of tracks from his real-world peers.
Of all the Australian music featured, it’s G Flip’s Bed On Fire that lands with the most impact, soundtracking a romantic, racy Hannah-and-Garrett montage that opens episode five. The result has been immediate and, according to G Flip, life-changing. The track – which they recorded entirely at home and released last September – has surged on streaming, with monthly listeners on Spotify up 230%. “It’s definitely Bed On Fire the most, but trickling down to the rest of my catalogue,” G Flip tells Guardian Australia from their home in Los Angeles.
On Instagram, they’ve been documenting the impact in real time, sharing a stream of awestruck posts, including a live watch-through of the scene (“I’m not used to hetero sex, so I’ve got a lot to learn”), warm welcomes for new fans and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the song’s creation. In one clip, they even tearfully concede that the Off Campus effect might finally dethrone their longtime annual top listener on Spotify: their mum, Lisa.
“It’s a raunchy, hot scene. I’ve been told a lot of people have been replaying it, so they’re hearing my track a lot,” G Flip says. Crucially, viewers “get to hear the chorus three times over” – a rarity in TV placements, where songs are often sliced into fragments to fit the scene.
The Off Campus soundtrack reflects a broader moment for Australian music finding its way on to US screens. For the artists lucky enough to be chosen, it can be a critical moment of visibility in an industry still struggling to generate sustainable revenue, squeezed by high touring costs, meagre streaming payouts, persistent discoverability challenges at home and the ongoing contraction of the festival and venue landscape.
Royel Otis tracks have surfaced in streaming hits Platonic and The Summer I Turned Pretty as well as on the big screen in Scream 7, while Troye Sivan’s Rush made a memorable appearance in Heartstopper, and Ninajirachi’s Hidden Land popped up, more incongruously, in Special Ops: Lioness. Kevin Parker’s work as Tame Impala, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the country’s stealth leaders in the space, with Elephant first featuring prominently on Girls in 2013, before making it on to The Vampire Diaries, I Love LA and Captain America: Brave New World.
In the music industry, these placements are known as syncs. Each deal is split into two “sides”: the publishing fee, which covers the underlying composition; and the master fee, which covers the specific recording. If it’s an original track, the artist may receive both; if it’s a cover – such as Royel Otis’s take on The Cranberries’ Linger, in The Summer I Turned Pretty – the performer collects the master fee while the original songwriter takes the publishing. “It’s always a surprise as to which song gets picked,” Royel Otis’s Royel Maddell tells Guardian Australia over email. His bandmate Otis Pavlovic adds: “It always seems to reach audiences that might have not ever heard our music in the first place.”
Fees are negotiated depending on how the track is used. A fleeting background snippet will pay far less than a song woven into the fabric of a scene (like Bed On Fire), or used diegetically – that is, existing within the world of the show itself. Duration, placement and territory all factor in, with television fees typically ranging from just a few hundred to several thousand dollars. That’s a fraction of a premium ad campaign placement, which can command a fee in the hundreds of thousands.
Streamers tend to have deeper pockets than local broadcasters, but even then, the real value of a sync lies less in the upfront payday than in the exposure, discovery and the potential for further placements.
Nicholas Pickard, from music rights management organisation Apra Amcos, says nearly $100m in international public performance, broadcast and online royalties flowed back to Australian creators last year, driven in part by television and streaming placements. For artists in Apra’s membership, “sync is a genuine export pathway,” Pickard says, “not just culturally, but commercially”.
At Apra Amcos, music used in streaming series, such as Off Campus, is often classified as digital revenue rather than TV. But even without streaming, TV remains a far larger revenue driver than film: in the 2024/25 financial year, it accounted for 15.9% of that international income, compared to just 0.6% from cinema. Meanwhile, revenue from music used on Australian and New Zealand television has edged down slightly over the past three years, underscoring the critical role of international syncs.
Andrew Klippel, co-founder of Ourness – whose management roster includes Royel Otis and Genesis Owusu – says the decision to agree to a sync often hinges on whether it feels “culturally aligned”. He contrasts an ad campaign for a bank with a beloved streaming show like The Summer I Turned Pretty: the former risks “taking a bit of allure off the [music],” while the latter might pay “about 10% of what a commercial would”. Still, the ultimate upside of a movie or TV sync can be far greater: “It really is one of the most profound things that can happen for an artist.”
Or, as G Flip puts it: “I’ve gained a lot more eyes and ears on my music from this.”
