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SBS -but wait there’s more…

The good news for SBS doesn't end at $158m and an Indigenous channel.

This week’s funding news of the $158m for SBS has re-energised staff working at the public broadcaster.

Yesterday morning Managing Director Michael Ebeid assembled all staff at the Artarmon headquarters in the atrium to share the good news. After months -even years- of uncertainty it has lifted morale.

But what isn’t widely understood is that the funding is not part of the SBS triennial bid, which is still yet to come. It is a one-off boost of $158.1m over the next five years. The broadcaster’s triennial funding is delayed, to be considered alongside ABC’s triennial funding in 2013.

Michael Ebeid told TV Tonight there were many long trips to Canberra made to win the outcome, with meetings with not only Senator Stephen Conroy but Julia Gillard who took a personal interest in the broadcaster’s future. Gillard still took the meetings while under intense leadership pressure.

About 90% of NITV staff are expected to join SBS for the new Indigenous channel, with $15m a year dedicated directly to the new channel.

So will it still be known as NITV or a new branding?

“We’re working on that at the moment. NITV is a strong brand recognised within the Indigenous community. We’ll do some research on whether we need to change it or not. It’s one of many streams of work we’re looking at. But at the moment the thinking is we’ll probably leave it.”

He said it was too early to comment on content changes for the channel.

“Now that we’ve got funding certainty over the next few years, particularly with the year after next when we know we’ve still got another increase, we can start looking at commissioning shows that will be produced in that following year,” he said.

“Having that certainty will completely change the way we operate at SBS, because we haven’t had it before. We do have projects on our commissioning slate we’ll be reviewing and over the next few weeks and months we’ll confirm a lot of them, but not today.”

The Indigenous channel is expected to launch in December.

SBS also plans to launch SBS3 but still has more work to do on SBS1 and SBS2. New Director of Television Tony Iffland started his role last week.

Disclaimer: David Knox blogs Eurovision at sbs.com.au

7 Responses

  1. The SBS Freeview mux is a good place for NITV. But another SBS channel before 2014 (when there will be no more analog TV) would require much additional investment by the government to do properly. Such a channel would replace SBS One HD. As such, it lends itself to being a film channel, given the availability of HD material in that field. SBS Two would benefit greatly from more original commissions.

  2. @Josh: NITV is currently available via free to air broadcast in many remote communities including major outback towns like Alice Springs and Mount Isa. But you are right the network has lacked any real exposure in larger populated areas apart from pay-TV and a temporary broadcast via digital 44 in Sydney (which wound up long ago).

  3. Thanks David for the clarification =). I always thought it was stupid that NITV was only available via STV when it would be better via FTA – espcecially in Indigenous dense populated areas. Should be interesting to see what SBS have planned for SBS3. I have said before on this site that a World Movies or Studio channel would change the FTA game in Australia as currently all channels are dedicated to general entertainment (with the exception of ABC News 24) just with different demos, compared to Freeview U.K. where they have dedicated lifestyle (e.g. Food Network) and music channels (e.g. Viva) (or if using Freesat there are even dedicated movie channels such as Horror Channel, True Movies and Men&Movies)

  4. David I’m confused as to the future of NITV. Does this mean that the new SBS channel will replace NITV, or that there will now be two indigenous channels? Also, you mentioned the launching of SBS3, does that mean that the new indigenous channel will take the place of SBS4?

    1. NITV will morph into the new Indigenous channel at SBS, including with staff and editorial effectively intact. I believe there will be 3 x SBS channels + 1 Indigenous, but we will have to wait and see.

  5. Well done for NITV for come to FTA. Always thought it was weird to be on Foxtel. We need SBS3 for either be world movie, STUDIO or a Eurosport-ish channel. They have the content, no?

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