Channel Profile: SBS

COUNTRY: Australia
LAUNCH DATE: SBS One (1980) SBS Two (June 2009)
OWNERSHIP:  Special Broadcasting Service Corporation
DISTRIBUTION: SBS One reaches 99 percent of Australian homes; SBS Two (a digital-only channel) reaches 53 percent of Australian homes.
SENIOR MANAGEMENT:
Managing Director: Shaun Brown
Director of Content, TV & Online: Matt Campbell
Head, Programming: Jane Roscoe
Manager, Production & Development: Denise Eriksen
National Manager, Content Sales & Distribution: Sharon Ramsay-Luck
CONTACT EMAIL: comments@sbs.com.au
WEBSITE: www.sbs.com.au

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: Primarily funded by the Australian federal government, and permitted to carry a limited amount of advertising, SBS is unique in the diverse nature of its programming and the audiences it serves. "SBS is quite a unique broadcaster, and about 50 percent of our schedule is in languages other than English," said Matt Campbell, SBS’s director of content for TV and online. "For a free-to-air broadcaster, that’s quite a difference."

SBS radio and television services broadcast in more languages than any other network in the world, reflecting the vast array of cultures represented in Australia. SBS Television alone carries programs in more than 60 languages across the main channel, SBS One, and the digital-only channel, SBS Two, which launched this summer. Programs in languages other than English comprise more than half the SBS Television schedule.

SBS was established to help define, foster and celebrate Australia’s cultural diversity in accordance with its Charter obligation to "provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia’s multicultural society."

Campbell notes that each week more than 7 million Australians watch SBS’s mix of Australian-produced and international programs, drawn from more than 400 national and international sources.

“It is one of the most challenging and rewarding programming jobs in Australia,” says Campbell. “Our aim is to celebrate difference and promote understanding through creative and quality programming that is inclusive and diverse.”

Campbell points out, in particular, Australian productions such as First Australians, which chronicles the birth of Australia and the collision of two cultures, black and white, and the original Australian drama East West 101, now in its second season, which portrays a multicultural detective crime squad based in Sydney’s western suburbs.

Other recent original productions from SBS include The Circuit, East West 101, Who Do You Think You Are?, Food Safari, My Family Feast, Costa’s Garden Odyssey and Carla Cametti PD.

SBS is also home to a number of sports content, including football. Already home to Australia’s most extensive free-to-air football lineup, SBS is "well advanced," Campbell says, in its plans to broadcast the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Quality imports do consistently well for the channel, including Top Gear, Entourage, South Park, and the perennially popular Inspector Rex. Further recent acquisitions include Mad Men, Man Vs Wild, Heston’s Feasts, Trawlermen and Flight of the Conchords.

In terms of acquisitions, Campbell says, "SBS is interested in male-skewed edgy comedy and animation; new food and lifestyle programs that have an international flavor; hard-hitting English-language dramas for post-10 p.m. time slots; quirky entertainment shows, which do particularly well on Saturday nights, and high-end documentaries across science, history and politics."

UPCOMING HIGHLIGHTS: Swift and Shift Couriers series 2, Costa’s Garden Odyssey series 2, Entourage series 3, Italian Food Safari with Maeve O’Meara, the long-awaited Wilfred series 2, James May’s Toy Stories, coverage of the 2010 Tour de France and coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.  

To watch SBS’s promo reel, please click

here

.