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The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates six TV channels ( SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World Movies, SBS Food, NITV and SBS WorldWatch) and seven radio networks (SBS Radios 1, 2 and 3, Arabic24, SBS Chill, SBS PopDesi and
SBS PopAsia SBS PopAsia is an Australian digital radio station that broadcasts music, most notably from East Asia and Southeast Asia, on digital radio, online and on mobile devices. The station originated as a two-hour segment on SBS youth radio programme ...
). SBS Online is home to SBS On Demand video streaming service. The stated purpose of SBS is "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".SBS: Frequently Asked Questions
SBS Corporation, accessed 26 May 2007
SBS is one of five main free-to-air networks in Australia.


History

As a result of extensive post-World War II immigration to Australia and the end of the controversial and racist White Australia Policy, the federal government began to consider the need for "ethnic broadcasting" – programming targeted at ethnic minorities and mostly delivered in languages other than English. Until 1970, radio stations were prevented by law from broadcasting in foreign languages for more than 2.5 hours per week. In June 1975, two "experimental" radio stations began broadcasting: 2EA in
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
and 3EA in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...
(EA stood for "Ethnic Australia"). In March 1976, the federal government established the Consultative Committee on Ethnic Broadcasting, followed by the National Ethnic Broadcasting Advisory Council in January 1977. Initially, it was considered feasible for ethnic broadcasting to be delivered by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC); however, this plan was abandoned in mid-1977.Brief History of SBS
, Multicultural Australia. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
In October 1977, the government announced the creation of SBS as a new independent
statutory authority A statutory body or statutory authority is a body set up by law (statute) that is authorised to implement certain legislation on behalf of the relevant country or state, sometimes by being Primary and secondary legislation, empowered or deleg ...
for ethnic broadcasting. This was achieved as a result of an amendment to the '' Broadcasting Act 1942''. SBS formally came into existence on 1 January 1978. The inaugural Chair of SBS was Grisha Sklovsky, and the inaugural executive director was Ronald Fowell. The service was initially a radio network, and had oversight only of the two existing stations 2EA and 3EA. It was always intended that it would be enlarged, but this process was controversial – the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations wanted the television functions to be controlled by the ABC. In March 1979, the government set up the Ethnic Television Review Panel, which recommended that SBS should expand multilingual services into television. SBS TV began test transmissions in April 1979 when it showed various foreign language programs on ABV-2 Melbourne and ABN-2 Sydney on Sunday mornings. Full-time transmission began on a new television channel at 6:30 pm on 24 October 1980 ( United Nations Day). The first program shown was a documentary entitled ''Who Are We?'', which was hosted by veteran news presenter Peter Luck. At the time, SBS was broadcasting on
UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
Channel 28 and
VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
Channel 0 (pronounced as "oh" and not "zero"), with a planned discontinuation of the latter at some time in the future. Bruce Gyngell, who introduced television to Australia in 1956, was given the task of introducing the first batch of programs on the new station. SBS programming content was initially imported from the suppliers in the countries-of-origin of Australia's major migrant communities and then subtitled into English.Hawkins, Gay ( University of New South Wales) and Ien Ang ( University of Western Sydney)
"Inventing SBS: Televising the Foreign,"
2007, ''ACH: The Journal of the History of Culture in Australia'', 26: 1-14, Taylor & Francis, Australia.
In October–November 1983, the service expanded to service the centres of Canberra, Cooma and Goulburn, subsequently changing its name to Network 0–28. Its new slogan was the eventual long-running "Bringing the World Back Home". The network changed its name to simply SBS in February 1985 and soon began daytime transmissions. SBS also expanded to the cities of
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
,
Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...
, Newcastle, Wollongong and the Gold Coast in June of that year. On 5 January 1986, SBS ceased broadcasting on the
VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
channel 0 frequency. Although many Australians at the time did not have UHF antennas, SBS's VHF licence had already been extended by a year at this stage and not all antennas had worked well with the low-frequency Channel 0. In August 1986, the government proposed legislation that would amalgamate SBS into the ABC. This was highly unpopular with ethnic-minority communities, and after protests from both SBS staff and communities, resulted in the
Prime Minister of Australia The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister heads the executive branch of the Australian Government, federal government of Australia and is also accountable to Parliament of A ...
, Bob Hawke announcing in 1987 that the proposed amalgamation would not proceed. The SBS Radio and Television Youth Orchestra was soon launched in 1988 with founding conductor Matthew Krel. Plans to introduce limited commercial-program sponsorship, as well as the establishment of SBS as an independent corporation with its own charter, were put in place in July 1989. A program called '' Eat Carpet'', showcasing local and international short films, was also launched in 1989. The formation of the Special Broadcasting Service Act 1991 officially made SBS a corporation in 1991. Throughout the early 1990s, SBS TV coverage was expanded further to include new regional areas such as the Latrobe Valley,
Spencer Gulf The Spencer Gulf is the westernmost and larger of two large inlets (the other being Gulf St Vincent) on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, facing the Great Australian Bight. It spans from the Cape Catastrophe and ...
,
Darwin Darwin may refer to: Common meanings * Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection * Darwin, Northern Territory, a territorial capital city i ...
, northeast Tasmania, Cairns and Townsville. In 1992, SBS's radio and television facilities were gradually relocated to new premises in
Artarmon Artarmon is a suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 9 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Willoughby. History ...
,
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
. Radio services were initially located in Bondi Junction and television services in
Milsons Point Milsons Point is a suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The suburb is located 3 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of North Sydney Council. ...
. The new building was officially opened on 10 November 1993 by the prime minister, Paul Keating, and a national radio network was launched in January 1994. The new service initially covered Brisbane,
Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...
,
Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...
, and Darwin, while original stations 2EA and 3EA were renamed Radio Sydney and Radio Melbourne respectively. However, the new national service was launched on a separate frequency in Sydney and Melbourne in July of that year. Throughout 1996, the radio services were expanded to cover
Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/ Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-smal ...
and Canberra, while SBS TV's coverage was further expanded to include the New South Wales North Coast and the town of Albury.
Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy program ...
's ''
South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...
'', SBS's most successful imported television series, was first aired in 1997. A time-delay system was installed for South Australia in May 1999, shortly before the establishment of the Transmission Services division (intended to manage transmission and self-help services). A New Media division, responsible for the SBS website, was established at the start of 2000 in time for the first
webcast A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...
of the Australian Film Institute Awards. Ratings continued to increase through 2000 to 2001 – increasing to an overall 5.2% average weekly audience share.SBS: History
SBS Corporation, accessed 26 May 2007
In April 2003, SBS Radio dropped four languages from its schedule, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, and Belarusian, and added four others, Amharic, Nepalese, Malay, and Somali, while increasing the broadcast hours for
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
,
Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
, and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
. SBS broadcast the 2004 Athens Olympics in partnership with the Seven Network. and also broadcast Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland.
Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...
, Vietnamese and
Arabic language Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
broadcasts were added to SBS's ''WorldWatch'' television schedule in 2003. However, the Vietnamese community protested the Vietnamese-language service, which was just taken from VTV4,
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...
's government-controlled national broadcaster. They found the portrayal of the communist Vietnamese flag and Ho Chi Minh offensive and stated that the program's lack of reporting on political arrests and religious oppression was also offensive, especially to those who had fled the country following the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. This backlash prompted SBS to remove the bulletin from schedule and from then on to display disclaimers before all externally produced bulletins in order to distance it from the content. In May 2008, SBS unveiled a new-look logo as well as a new backronymic slogan: "Six Billion Stories and counting". On 8 May 2012, SBS received $158 million in government funding, of which $15 million would be used yearly, to fund the formation of a new free-to-air channel devoted to the indigenous peoples of Australia. which would replace the existing National Indigenous Television on 12 December 2012, with 90% of its staff transferring to this new channel. On 12 December 2012, NITV was re-launched as an SBS-operated free-to-air channel, replacing SBS4. SBS is a supporter of same-sex marriage and pulled an anti-same-sex marriage advertisement ahead of its telecast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Then managing director, Michael Ebeid, defended SBS's position on the issue. On 17 November 2015, the new food channel, SBS Food Network, was launched. On 17 November 2018, the channel became SBS Food. In June 2016, SBS announced that SBS 2 was set to be rebranded as SBS Viceland with content from US-Canadian youth Vice Media from November 2016. On 1 July 2019, SBS relaunched their former pay-TV movie channel, World Movies as SBS World Movies and it became a free-to-air channel. On 12 January 2022, SBS announced that a sixth free-to-air television channel, with the working title SBS WorldWatch, would be launched in 2022. The channel would be free to air and would broadcast all foreign-language bulletins currently broadcast on SBS and SBS Viceland, and new locally-produced news bulletins in Arabic and Mandarin Chinese in prime time. The Arabic and Mandarin bulletins launched on February 15, 2022 through SBS On Demand, while the official trailer for the SBS WorldWatch channel was released six days later, which announced the launch date of 23 May.


Services


Television

Regardless of state or territory, SBS television services always use the callsign "SBS". On 14 December 2006, SBS announced its intention to change to
720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcas ...
as its high-definition transmission standard for SBS HD. SBS had previously down converted its scheduled SBS high-definition content to the 576p standard. On 5 June 2012, SBS upgraded its HD format from
720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcas ...
to 1080i. On 1 June 2006, the SBS managing director, Shaun Brown, announced the corporation's desire to initiate in-show commercial breaks, in the same manner as the commercial television networks. He said that the move would raise $10 million in the first year, as he believes that SBS's current strategy of showing ads between programs "is unpopular with viewers". "On average we lose more than half our audience during these breaks – this is 30 percent more than other broadcasters", claimed Brown upon announcing the new move. SBS's commercial breaks remained at their existing statutory limit of five minutes per hour, as opposed to the fifteen minutes per hour permitted on Australia's fully commercial stations. An individual break lasted between one and two minutes. A related change was the launch of a one-hour edition of '' World News'', replacing the half-hour ''World News Australia'' and ''World Sport'' programs. In-show advertising commenced on 9 October 2006 during the broadcast of ''
MythBusters ''MythBusters'' is a science entertainment television program, developed by Peter Rees and produced by Australia's Beyond Television Productions. The series premiered on the Discovery Channel on January 23, 2003. It was broadcast internatio ...
''. Former SBS television services are SBS Essential (LCN 31, sporting events, and other digital-only projects, when available) and SBS World News Channel (LCN 32, foreign news service).


Subscription channels

In 1995, SBS launched a new division called SBS Subscription TV. In October 1995, the first subscription channel to launch was World Movies; the channel focuses on independent international films. It was closed on 31 January 2018 but relaunched on free-to-air television on 1 July 2019. In April 2010, SBS launched
Studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...
(previously marketed at as STVDIO); that channel focused on arts programming such as classical and popular music, literature, film, visual arts and dance with documentaries and performances. However, Studio closed down on 27 March 2015 and was replaced by Foxtel Arts.


Radio

SBS Radio broadcasts in 74 languages in all Australian states, producing an estimated 13,500 hours of Australian programming for its two frequencies in Sydney and
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...
as well as for its national network. Much like SBS TV, SBS radio receives funding from a mix of government grants, paid-for government information campaigns and commercial advertising.About SBS Radio
SBS Radio broadcast the UEFA Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. Following "extensive community consultation" in 2003, SBS introduced a range of new programs, including services in Malay,
Somali Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Soma ...
and Amharic – in addition to the expansion of many existing programs. In April 2013, SBS rolled out a major overhaul of its radio
schedule A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things are i ...
. The last major review of the SBS Radio schedule had taken place in 1994, and since then Australia's demographics had changed significantly. With the new schedule SBS intends to better reflect Australia's ethnic composition. With the addition of six new languages:
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
, Dinka, Hmong, Pashto,
Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...
and Tigrinya, SBS has brought the total number of languages from 68 to 74.New SBS Radio Schedule has launched
, accessed 14 September 2013
SBS Announces New Radio Schedule For 2013
, accessed 14 September 2013
SBS rolled out a trial of RDS (Radio Data System) in the Melbourne and Sydney broadcast areas in November 2012. Radio listeners can identify the SBS Radio service by the "SBSRadio" identifier and, if their radio permits, by RDS scrolling text on their FM-capable RDS radio. NOW and NEXT data was progressively added to all radio services in 2012 and 2013. This now/next data is displayed on FM RDS Radio (Melbourne/Sydney) and DAB+ receptions areas for radios that can display metadata. NOW and NEXT Radio schedule is also displayed on free-to-air Terrestrial Digital Television (DTV) program guides and on TiVo and TBox where applicable. SBS rolled out the 14-day rolling radio schedule over DTV television in November 2012. A radio event (or program) can be viewed and booked/recorded to PVR or the listener reminded. The schedule adapts to daylight saving changes as required. Following the Language Services Review in 2021, SBS re-introduced a range of new and existing programs in revised languages in November 2022.


Other


On demand

SBS on Demand is a video on demand and catch up TV service run by SBS. In April 2016, SBS launched a video on demand application called "SBS On Demand VR" (later renamed "SBS VR").


Multilingual services

SBS has been providing multilingual services since 1975. Alongside news and radio, the SBS in-language units in both Sydney and Melbourne, provide a range of language services for medium to large organisations, private and government businesses. These include accredited translations, typesetting, voiceovers/re-narration, subtitling and video services in over 68 languages.


SBS independent

SBS independent (SBSi) was the primary production unit of SBS programming, which existed from August 1994 to December 2007. At the end of 2007, SBS independent was merged with the SBS Content and Online Division.


Youth orchestra

The SBS Youth Orchestra was an Australian premier youth orchestra, founded in 1988 by the now late Matthew Krel. It was disbanded in 2013.


SBS Sexuality

An online platform that celebrates "the diversity of sexuality in Australia and its multicultural communities".


Film distribution

SBS used to distribute films in the early 1990s. In 2014, SBS revived its film distribution division as SBS Movies, which then teamed up with SBS' home video distributor Madman Entertainment. Both SBS and Madman released the 2016 American film '' Hell or High Water'' in Oceania.


Corporation


Board

;Chair *
Grisha Sklovsky {{redirect, Grisha, the Soviet military corvette, Grisha-class corvette, the Egyptian football referee, Gehad Grisha, the Dutch politician, Grisha Heyliger-Marten Grischa (alternatively spelled Grisha or Gricha) is a short form for the name Gregory ...
(1978–1981) * Sir Nicholas Shehadie (1981–1999) * Carla Zampatti (1999–2009) * Joseph Skrzynski (2009–2014) *
Nihal Gupta Nihal may refer to: *Nihal (name), people with the name *Beta Leporis, a star traditionally known as Nihal *Nihāl, a tribe that inhabits parts of Central India; cf. Nihali language *Nihal the hero of the fantasy saga by Licia Troisi Licia Troisi ...
(2014–2016) * Bulent Hass Dellal (2017–2020) * George Savvides (2020–present) ;Managing director *Ron Fowell (1978–1985) * Ron Brown (1985–1987) * Brian Johns (1987–1992) *Malcolm Long (1993–1997) *Nigel Milan (1997–2005) * Shaun Brown (2005–2011) * Michael Ebeid (2011–2018) * James Taylor (2018–present) ;Current board members * George Savvides * Sally Walker *
Daryl Karp Darryl is an English name, a variant spelling of Darell. Male variations of this name include: Darlin, Daryl, Darrell, Darryl, Daryll, Darryll, Darrell, Darrel. Female and unisex variations of this name include: Daryl, Darian, Dareen, Darelle ...
*
William Lenehan William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conques ...
* Dorothy (Dot) West * Peeyush Gupta


See also

* Digital radio in Australia * List of programs broadcast by Special Broadcasting Service *
SBS Sport ''SBS Sport'' is the name given to the Special Broadcasting Service's sport's programming broadcast on SBS Television and SBS Radio. Television & Streaming SBS currently holds the broadcast rights to a range of sports, which are broadcast on ...


Notes


References


External links

*
SBS In Language Service
{{Authority control Public television in Australia Multilingual broadcasters Mass media companies established in 1978 Television channels and stations established in 1978 1978 establishments in Australia Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia Publicly funded broadcasters