Unsuited as it may seem, the Special Broadcasting Service’s home in light-industrial Artarmon is a fitting place for a network making an attempt to address an identity crisis and the media revolution on infrequent resources.
When SBS television started on October 24, 1980 – United Nations Day – it began with a documentary, Who Are We? It’s a nod to the reason for SBS’s being : to strengthen the social policy of multiculturalism.
Three decades on, a broadcaster that started with commercial-free radio and TV engineered to showcase Australia’s cultural variety now receives a 3rd of its income from advertising. To many it’s miles better called the station that brought Top Gear down under, and the home of football and the Tour de France.
During the government’s review of public broadcasting two years back, one viewer bitched that SBS had changed from ”a very special broadcaster of the past, into a de facto commercial lookalike”. Effectively, he asked : who are you, SBS?
Chris Berg, a research fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs, goes further : why are you continuing to here? He is saying SBS has slid into ”almost complete irrelevance”. ”It definitely can’t hope to cater for the sheer diversity of migrant communities in Australia in 2011, and those communities have access to home content thru online and satellite services,’ ‘ he is saying.
”The writing has been on the wall for SBS for many years, but it lumbers on generally because state programs are extraordinarily tough to shut down.’ ‘
The govt. professes excellent support, but that isn’t paired with robust funding. In the last funding round, SBS won $20 million additional, but the ABC got $180 million, while the profitable commercial networks were relieved of $250 million in licence charges. SBS runs two Television channels and 4 radio stations on 1 / 4 of Channel Seven’s cash and less than a 3rd of the ABC’s.
The web has brought a deeper challenge, undercutting the reason behind its existence. Folks can now hear, see and read their own languages and cultures online when they need from their homelands.
But SBS’s new MD, Michael Ebeid, believes it is required now more than ever.
Ebeid, forty five, personifies the broadcaster’s inclusiveness. Born in Egypt, schooled at Epping Boys High and a former head of selling at the ABC, Ebeid lives in East Sydney with his partner, Roland, a Qantas pilot.
Three months into the job, he has settled into his pitch. ”Today, we’ve got double the number of folks who speak another language than 35 years back when SBS was set up,’ ‘ he is saying. ”So I’d disagree that cultural difficulty [means] SBS is required and is more applicable today than ever.’ ‘
Cultural enclaves may develop if migrants get all their news from home. ”It means they don’t seem to be getting stories and current affairs from an Australian point of view and, more importantly, stories and current affairs about Australia,’ ‘ he is saying. ”I think that’s a real worry for our society.’ ‘ SBS can help by reporting Australian issues in migrants ‘ languages.
As for the harder question of the SBS identity, he wants to take it back to charter basics : less Top Gear and more Return To Where You Came From, which took six Australians distrustful about asylum seekers to Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the time it aired it was SBS’s most well-liked program of the year – 524,000 spectators on the first night. The other networks frequently do double that. Its prime-time chunk of the national audience has been about six percent for the previous six years.
But its point is to be niche, and Ebeid welcomes it. ”We are returning to being a rather more distinctive organisation,’ ‘ he is saying. A ”large majority’ ‘ of programs will focus on a charter that requires ”multilingual and multicultural’ ‘ programs which ”inform, entertain and educate all Australians and, in doing so , reflect Australia’s multicultural society”.
His main worry is whether he can afford to get there.
The responsible minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, asserts SBS is ”one of Australia’s most important cultural institutions’ ‘ – there is however without doubt SBS is struggling.
This week although it revealed a real life show, Bollywood Star, it also canned its only forthcoming local drama. Dusty was to be a series based on an investigator in Darwin, in the tradition of recent offerings East West 101 and The Circuit.
It just hasn’t got the money for expensive Australian drama. ”We don’t have anything on our commissioning slate for major drama and I suspect that could be a real shame.’ ‘
The extra $20 million Conroy won for SBS is, in television terms, peanuts, especially as it has got to battle with other broadcasters running to fill their digital channels.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam announces : ”They are getting hit from a spread of fronts, and we think the most significant concern for the station is an important increase in public funding.’ ‘
Its three-year deal will be unveiled in the following budget, and Ludlam claims the Greens will make ”a big deal’ ‘ about its future.
Of its $207 million revenue in 2009-10, two thirds came from the governing body. Its stake in the pay TV channels World Movies and Stvdio provided $6 million, while $78 million came from advertising, first authorized on a public broadcaster by the Work government in 1991.
Those rules were re-interpreted to permit commercial breaks to break programs and SBS told a Senate guesses investigation this year junking them would cost it $45 million a year – almost 1 / 4 of its income.
Ebeid is hopeful about a funding boost, but given the government’s resolution to return to surplus, he’s not confident. His minister could be ”very supportive’ ‘ but he’s ”very realistic”.
If the money does come, SBS wants to offer 4 channels within five years, improved news and current affairs, more local programs and masses more online and on-demand.
And if the cash doesn’t come? Ebeid warns of ”a lot tougher decisions’ ‘ on what to show and what to hop. It raises the chance of having to make a choice between full migrant groups ; already some African groups miss out.
The government has asked it to launch an indigenous Television service with the $15 million it gives Countrywide Indigenous Television, displaying on pay Television and in remote Aboriginal communities. Ebeid wants a native channel but says the quality desires to boost and so does the money.
”I don’t want to be running 3 underfunded TV networks,’ ‘ he asserts. ”Fifteen million might sound like a lot but it’s not when you have to commission content. You cannot buy native content from the BBC.”
Ebeid spends much of his time lobbying for cash – the government, other parties and the ethnic communities who are his network’s primary audience. Their support is seen as critical to winning more money. ”Arguably, not a lot of politicians watch SBS, but I will bet that a lot of their constituents do’ as reported tagza.com.