SBS Board addresses community forum

SBS last night held a community forum where members of the public heard from Board members and senior management.

Insight presenter Jenny Brockie led the 90 minute ‘Conversations with SBS – Board Community Forum’ at its Artarmon headquarters, following the first Board meeting for 2017.

In attendance were the recently appointed Chairman of SBS, Dr Hass Dellal AO, Managing Director Michael Ebeid, Directors Dot West, Bill Lenehan, Daryl Karp and Peeyush Gupta, as well as senior SBS management.

The “lively” discussion touched upon the diverse communities that SBS serves, the SBS Radio Services Review, the importance of promoting languages, the need to serve younger audiences, SBS VICELAND, older audiences, digital technology, SBS On Demand, and Indigenous employment.

SBS Chairman, Dr Hass Dellal, told the audience: “I have a passion for SBS, and I know that you all have a passion for SBS. We have served the early migrants that came to this country really well, and we continue to serve them. We now have that same responsibility and obligation for Australia’s newer communities, to really serve them well. That’s what we’re about. We serve them through the stories we explore, and we do that through consultation.

“There are so many important issues to tackle and we need to make sure we are for all Australians – Indigenous Australians, new arrivals, as well as the earlier migrant communities – so we all come together as a nation.

“Simply being a culturally and ethnically diverse nation does not constitute a successful multicultural country in the absence of good policy and good consultation. SBS was one of those good policy decisions. It’s ours, it’s all of ours,” he added.

SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid said: “The media sector has changed more in the past five years than it has in the past 50. One of the things that we’ve been really focused on is evolving SBS to ensure we’re keeping up with the way that audiences are consuming media.

“That’s what we’re focused on, using technology to reach more Australians, be available to more communities, and continuing to evolve. But importantly we are making sure that our content is distinctive to every other network, and that has never been more important to us.

“We’re proud to be a network that reflects what you would see walking down any street in any city or town in Australia, more than any other network,” he added.

Forthcoming public events will be published on the SBS website.