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Mark Scott: ABC merge with SBS “worth investigation”

Outgoing ABC boss tells senate hearing committee that SBS is an analogue solution in a digital world.

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Outgoing ABC Managing Director Mark Scott has told a Senate estimates hearing that it was a matter for government whether ABC and SBS should be merged, but that SBS is less-distinctive than it had been in the past.

The discussion followed SBS managing director Michael Ebeid saying he was “disappointed” the ABC would air Foreign Correspondent at 9.30pm Tuesday this year, the same time as Dateline.

It was a “waste” for two similar programs covering international affairs to air at the same time, he said.

On the question of a merger between the two broadcasters, Mark Scott said today, “I think it is a matter that is worthy of investigation down the track.

“There have been circumstances where we have bid for programs and we feel that we have been outbid or we have withdrawn from the process because SBS has been bidding.

“And we would have argued that those programs were core to the charter and the track record of the ABC.

“SBS was created well before digitisation, well before digital television … it’s an analogue solution in a digital world,” he said. “When Foxtel wants to run new discrete channels, they don’t create entire new networks around it.”

SBS has fiercely protected its independence as a broadcaster and argued the cultures it represents extends beyond ethnic groups to others less-represented in media. Lobby group Save Our SBS has also suggested its content has become broader to attract advertising at the expense of being a specialist broadcaster.

Mark Scott said, “I suspect that the SBS of today which is more ‘general interest broadcasting’ means the distinction between the two broadcasters is not as [strong] as it once was.

“For example, I think it’s true to say on any reckoning that there is far less subtitled content on its main channel than 20 or 30 years ago.”

SBS 2 airs very similar programs to ABC2, he added.

In 2014 outgoing SBS chairman Joseph Skrzynski said, “In the business world, we know there is a very simple law that applies to mergers: the larger entity culture smothers the smaller. The ABC is over four times larger than SBS in terms of staff and funding, and so you would expect ABC culture to become dominant.”

Over the last five years the annual TV Tonight Audience Inventory has asked readers whether “Merging Public Broadcasters” is a pressing issue, and overwhelmingly readers have indicated: “Not Important.”

In April Mark Scott begins a handover to incoming managing director Michelle Guthrie.

Source: Fairfax, AAP

19 Responses

  1. It won’t happen though. ABC and SBS outsource their broadcasting to Broadcast Australia so no savings there. You would get some saving stopping the two of them bidding against either other and competing head to head with SBS2/ABC2 and iView/On Demand. However, the ABC has much more bureaucracy and higher costs, so you would get much less on air for the same budget for SBS TV.

    This is just Scott trying to attack his competition and throw SBS under the Senate Committee to distract them from the ABC’s own failures to meet its charter.

  2. I think it is true that the existence of SBS has helped to perpetuate ABC TV as a very Anglo middle class network with little effort to represent ethnic minorities or an ethnic suburban Australia on ABC screens. For example the ABC has either had pretty white bread drama or occasional indigenous drama but little in between. In contrast reality TV shows on commercial networks have had more ethnic diversity than the ABC. But if you merged SBS and ABC a Federal Coalition government would not adequately fund this new entity but just see it as an opportunity to cut public funding. The Coalition hates public broadcasters and no matter how you try to appease it as Mark Scott did they’ll still shaft you.

  3. The flip side though surely is a merger would result in only one organisation rather than two being able to stand up for public service television whenever the three bully boys don’t get their own way.

  4. From what I understand, the reason there is more English language programming on SBS is down to the continual reduction in funding. SBS back in the day would create their own translations and subtitles inhouse, but due to budget cuts, this valuable service had to be scaled back. Now they are relying on either programs that have already been subtitled or English language / English dubbed content from their various distributors. The continual slashing of their budget is the real reason SBS has been forced to “go mainstream” – never forget that.

  5. Oh joy, another round of ABC/SBS merger speculation. The ABC has been trying to get hold of SBS for 30 years now. Ironically SBS would have never been formed in the 1970s if the ABC back then agreed to take on the new ‘ethnic’ radio stations that would become the foundation of what is now SBS. The ABC let the horse bolt and ever since have been trying to grab it back.

  7. I disagree entirely. SBS and ABC are really different in terms of programming. I’d argue that SBS has more English/history channel programs. GEM would be the biggest competitor to SBS atm
    As for SBS2, it’s definitely more unique in terms of programming compared to ABC2.
    Food network is my favoured “background” channel, and nitv is of national importance. I still think they need to advertise nitv more, and it needs less Maori content and more Indigenous Australian content.

    1. So basically what your saying is SBS (as it is now) is something that could easily be done by a commercial, or even the ABC?

      Which, if you read the whole of what Mark Scott said, is his point: SBS is no longer the unique multicultural / foreign language station it was created to be, so there may not be any reason to give it special stand-alone status.

      As much as I loved the old SBS with its multiple different cultural outlooks, foreign-language programming, and ‘bringing the world back home’ mission, it’s been dead for over 9 years now…

  9. SBS2 showed a Jackie Chan movie – Chinese Zodiac – in dubbed English instead of its original Cantonese & Mandarin soundtrack, like the old SBS used to it

    I agree. Time to rethink the idea of SBS

      1. I’ve found that in particular for the animated films played on SBS. Most recently, in the case of A Monster in Paris, On Demand and guide said it was in French, but was actually in English.

      2. It kind of depends on that … and it kind of doesn’t. When SBS TV started, they made a big fuss to get the un-subtitled versions of everything, in order to add their own superior subtitles. Soon this led to a new business sideline for SBS — exporting subtitle services around the world.

        I’m more disappointed that SBS never pursued the option of starting up similar channels in other countries, using the homeland SBS Australia as the revenue base. If they had started signing up overseas satellite / cable channels at the end of the 1990s, by now they could have had more revenue coming in from outside Australia than all their domestic commercial and government income combined. Many times over, possibly.

      3. I dont buy this excuse

        As a channel whose charter is about celebrating the diverse cultures found in Australia, it is poor form they chose to broadcast a movie with a popular Chinese actor in dubbed English. Surely their distributor knows what kind of channel SBS is.

        This reeks of laziness and of SBS pandering the lower common audience, rather than upholding their previous high standards. If they were that hard up for cash they couldnt have subtitled the film properly, than just use the subtitles available in the consumer retail release (thats how I watched it, and was able to follow it, even if they were a little odd at times)

        1. Not only that, but they are also running a huge campaign about celebrating Lunar New Year… and their way of doing it was to broadcast a dubbed into English version of a Chinese movie?

  10. Making one great show out of two with Dateline and Foreign Correspondent is an example of the efficiency that could be achieved if a merger occurred. I agree with his views Marks here. I know it’s controversial, but all I see is a more efficient but more powerful and effective organisation if ABC and SBS merged. There would be ways to do it without losing the core elements of both charters, although I mainly see SBS processes being integrated with the ABC.

    1. By that reasoning we could (and should) merge 10, 9 and 7, as all they play are dross reality shows. If that’s not duplication of effort I don’t know what is.

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