SBS takes funding campaign online

SBS has launched a new website, www.sbs.com.au/future, as part of its ongoing campaign for triennial funding in the 2009 federal budget.

SBS managing director Shaun Brown has argued that the cost of acquiring and producing content was increasing while audiences demand more services. The broadcaster has previously pledged to provide at least 100 more hours per year of original Australian multicultural programming on television by 2012.

“We already complement our funding with the limited amount of commercial revenue we are permitted to raise. This is our only means to supplement our core funding,” he said.

“The revenue SBS raises through all commercial activities is modest – $49 million in 2006-07. But, importantly, all this revenue is invested into producing content.”

Mr Brown said a Newspoll found that 87 per cent of Australians believe it is important SBS provides an alternative to the ABC.

Press Release / Shaun Brown Address to The Sydney Institute
September 1, 2008 :
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we stand.

Let me start by declaring, with absolute confidence, that the next few months are the most important for SBS since its inception in the 1970s.

Shortly, we will enter into negotiations with the Australian Government about our funding for the next three years and beyond.

The outcome of these discussions will determine whether SBS will be able to meet the challenge created by the expanding and changing multicultural shape of Australia – or whether it will be marginalised as a well-intentioned but hopelessly under resourced experiment.

Australia is privileged to have three public broadcasters – SBS, the ABC and NITV – to complement the output of the commercial and subscription broadcasting sector. The presence of national broadcasters such as SBS ensures plurality and diversity in Australia’s media landscape.

From its early days as an experiment with multilingualism, SBS has had a transformative effect on Australian media and the broader community. We have given a face and a voice to multicultural Australia and, in the process, helped to shape it and all of Australian society as a consequence.

Prior to SBS, Australians were fed a staple diet of American or British ‘international’ content and could have been forgiven for thinking that diversity came with a difference of inflection and accent in spoken English.

Diversity or ‘foreignness’ was presented as unpronounceable, unpalatable or incomprehensible in the Australian media landscape. Some would argue that the broader Australian media has done little to correct this imbalance.

The SBS experience – our endurance as a force in Australian media – has shown that Australia’s cultural diversity can be a source of inspiration, discovery and personal transformation.

And it can and does inspire the creation of radio, television and online content that informs, educates and entertains all Australians while reflecting the true multicultural heart of this country.

There is a very real need for SBS’s services to not only continue, but to grow. We need to harness the potential of new technologies to expand and deepen our range of services.

To this end we recently released a document – SBS’s Plans for the Future – outlining our ambitions and we are currently discussing those plans with various stakeholders. As a protector and promoter of Australia’s cultural and creative identity it is important that we consider the views of our stakeholders and our audiences when developing our strategic direction in the new media landscape.

The idea is to have solid proposals as soon as possible for an expanded range of television, radio and online services that will chart SBS’s course between now and the proposed switch-off date for analogue television in 2013.

The importance of SBS

You might ask whether the broader Australian public understand and value the role SBS plays.

Well, we have just completed a research project with Newspoll on public attitudes towards SBS and it shows that 92 per cent of people surveyed agree that SBS exists to provide an alternative to the commercial networks in Australia. Perhaps even more significant is that 87 per cent think it is important that we provide an alternative to the ABC.

This is public recognition that SBS is a platform for Australian content that would otherwise never be broadcast, a vehicle for stories that would never be told, a version of Australia that would never be seen.

Our viewers believe we provide uniqueness, diversity, innovation, quality and trustworthy news and current affairs. They told us that we are the network that is always trying something new and presenting diverse viewpoints.

SBS’s contribution to the Australian community is to help foster a shared understanding of where we have come from and a sense of the wonderful possibility of where we can go.

We ensure that everyone’s story is reflected in our creative and cultural identity, we give a voice to different sectors of the community in our national debates and we enable different voices and different languages and cultures, to be reflected back to all Australians.

SBS initially brought ‘the world back home’ and enabled a better understanding of the diversity of origins of Australia’s rapidly growing migrant communities.

Now, SBS must meet the communications needs and content demands of a varied audience that includes first, second and third generation migrants, as well as the broader Australian community which itself comprises new and rapidly evolving culturally diverse communities and global connections.

Building an inclusive society

In 2008, SBS’s contribution is more important than ever as Australian society becomes even more diverse and complex.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently remarked that ‘every Australian should have an opportunity to be a full participant in the life of the nation’1. This is the fundamental premise of any discussion about social inclusion in this country.

The Minister for Finance and Deregulation Lindsay Tanner also recently spoke at length in the 2008 Redmond Barry lecture about the challenges faced by Australia’s migrant and refugee communities in settling in Australia.

It is heartening that even at the highest levels of Government there is recognition of the challenges that many face in participating fully in all that Australian life can offer.

We must all recognise that there are barriers to ensuring that all Australians can play a part in the social, cultural and creative life of this country. An inclusive and cohesive society cannot be left to chance and we must work to ensure we are meeting the needs of our diverse community.

Increasing and diversifying need

While those needs are increasing through the arrival of and growth in new populations, significant and changing need also remains for Australia’s established culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

SBS has just completed a comprehensive analysis of data gathered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics through the 2006 Census and the General Social Survey.

This analysis demonstrates the complexities of multicultural Australia and the equally complex needs of new and existing cultural and language communities.

The study shows that engaging with multicultural society in Australia is not simply a case of pigeon-holing or making generalisations about different communities and their needs.

This ignores the reality that language communities in Australia identify on a variety of levels including ancestry, faith, culture and lifestyle. These factors interrelate and make the cultural diversity experience in Australia unique and complex.

The study found that household resources and age were just as relevant in defining need as the level of language proficiency in communities.

It is fairly self-evident that groups with lower English language proficiency tend to participate less in civic, social or political life and this was reaffirmed by the ABS data. But these communities also tend to have lower levels of trust in others in their community and tend to have greater difficulty accessing services.

The groups with the lowest English language proficiency per capita in Australia include Vietnamese and Dinka, Hmong and Korean.

Other communities have substantial ageing populations, among them the two biggest language groups the Italians and the Greeks, as well as some smaller groups such as the Dutch, Lithuanian, Latvian and Ukrainian speaking communities.

This raises the issue of new needs for established communities as, anecdotally, these Australians revert to their mother tongue in old age and renew their need for in-language support.

The ABS data also shows that communities with lower household resources have a greater need for government services and more issues in gaining access to the services they need.

These communities are far less likely to have access to satellite or pay television services in their preferred languages. The groups with the lowest household resources include Indigenous languages and DInka, Kurdish, Dari, Hmong, Pashto, Assyrian, Amharic and Arabic.

Communities with the highest levels of community dispersal throughout Australia [for example: Indigenous languages and Torres Strait Creole speakers] also find it harder to access specialist services and may be isolated from the broader community.

They also tend to have far less access to local in-language media and therefore national in-language services become increasingly important to these sectors of the population.

It must be recognised that not all cultural communities are ‘disadvantaged’ – many are economically empowered, culturally competent and strong contributors to Australian society.

However, in delivering our Charter and in recognising our role in ensuring all Australians have an opportunity to participate in civic life in this country, SBS must acknowledge, consider and lessen where possible, the factors that make people vulnerable and undermine their ability to access services.

A vital link

Providing for community need has always been a crucial role for SBS and we must continue to find means of delivering communications services that are relevant to the needs of Australia’s diverse population.

Television, radio and, increasingly online, are key to delivering those services.

On television, our award winning sub-titling unit and our commitment to our World Watch in-language news services complement our commitment to producing locally made programming that presents a diverse view of Australia’s multicultural society.

SBS Radio is the most linguistically diverse radio network in the world, broadcasting in 68 different languages to a potential audience of more than three million Australians that speak a language other than English at home.

Around a quarter of Australians were born overseas and more than a quarter of Australians born here have at least one parent born overseas. More than 200 languages are spoken in the Australian community which indicates just how vast the need is for in-language services and support.

But these culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australia are under-serviced and under-targeted by the English-language media who, because of language barriers and cultural differences, cannot effectively engage with these communities.

I would also say that broadcasters in Australia often make a conscious choice not to engage with these communities.

This is where SBS differs – across all platforms. As Australia’s national in-language broadcaster SBS Radio enjoys a unique position of trust with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. It is one of their lifeline brands – a treasured element of their media consumption.

SBS Radio is many things to many people: a news source, an information provider, an entertainer, an educator, a cultural resource and a medium for diverse community views. It helps Australia’s many communities participate as fully as possible in society.

During community consultations I have been conducting across Australia about SBS’s future plans, concerns have been raised about the impact of unmediated access to in-language content from overseas [such as satellite or online services] and the difficulties this may pose for certain communities.

In Brisbane, one participant told me she was concerned about the local young Muslim community in particular accessing news and views from satellite services. She said it was important that communities were able to engage in local issues that they can identify with rather than solely engaging with news and views from overseas sources.

That is the difference with SBS’s in-language programming – it is responsible, independent and has editorial integrity – we present all points of view and tread the fine line that often exists in language and cultural communities.

SBS’s expertise, particularly in radio, is to bring the professional standards of a national public broadcaster to issues relevant to diverse communities.

This includes national, professional news services and forums and discussions about international and Australian issues. SBS prides itself on inclusiveness and impartiality and unbiased discussions about policy and public issues.

In a globalised world, it is more important than ever that Australians are encouraged to engage with and demonstrate tolerance and openness towards different cultures and communities.

Recognising change

Despite multiculturalism being embedded in Australian society, there is more work to be done to create greater cultural awareness, understanding and inclusiveness.

SBS has fearlessly championed the evolution of Australian multiculturalism, often times in the face of great criticism. By exploring multiculturalism and challenging cultural stereotypes in content that spans a range of languages and origins, SBS promotes understanding and combats intolerance.

To test our effectiveness, SBS has been conducting an audience and industry engagement study looking at two of our recent Australian television productions – The Circuit (set amongst the circuit courts in Australia’s Kimberly region and currently screening on SBS TV) and East West 101 – a hard hitting police drama about a multicultural police squad in Lakemba.

The independent research found that the cultural diversity messages of these programs were ‘potent and necessary’. Focus groups, which included ethnic and Indigenous Australians as well as independent producers, said SBS was presenting a different and more balanced perspective on Muslim and Indigenous issues that is missing from commercial television screens.

Participants said by credibly portraying their cultures on television screens this SBS content had the potential to become a force for social change – it could increase awareness, acceptance and tolerance of cultural diversity.

Participants spoke of the content starting ‘water-cooler’ conversations about cultural diversity rather than the latest celebrity booted off a reality television show. They called the content ‘brave’ and said it didn’t airbrush any of the social and cultural issues present in Australian society.

To continue to be relevant, SBS must be able to reinvent itself and find new ways of delivering its Charter which are both thought-provoking and appealing to audiences.

Multicultural society continues to evolve, and many younger culturally and linguistically diverse Australians do not participate in, or are frustrated by, long-standing forms of community representation or cultural identity. This is where our Australian made content becomes critical in a continued effort to create a culturally cohesive society.

At a consultation in Parramatta recently a Muslim woman talked passionately about the positive impact the SBS comedy Salaam Café had on her and her community. She told me that for the young people in her community to see themselves portrayed not as a problem in the news but as lively, witty contributors to a humorous discussion in the Australian experience, was simply transforming.

Changing technology presents both challenges and opportunity for SBS. Firstly, it is vital that all Australians benefit from the advances technology can bring and that there is both ubiquity of access and participation for all Australians – regardless of where they live or what language they speak.

SBS is the only broadcaster in Australia that can speak to all Australians and help shape or give voice to their perspective in the national conversation.

But herein lies the challenge. Consider the equation – Australia has changed, community needs have increased and technology has created the means by which SBS can continue to deliver to meet those growing and changing needs.

The missing part of the equation is the funding required to turn the opportunity presented by new technology into powerful, effective and essential new services.

Digital television and radio will allow us to expand our services but the technology is not an end in itself – we must have the content to deliver Australian audiences the services they demand and expect.

Online services are now the norm and with improvements to broadband speeds in Australia, audiences now expect to be able to access their favourite content online. Yet SBS has never had one cent from the Federal Budget allocated to online services since the Internet was invented.

Despite the lack of resources, SBS is making real gains in the type, range and quality of the content that we produce. And our audiences are noticing.

Our Newspoll research found that around a third of our online audience have noticed an improvement in our online services and more than half of our television audience believe that the quality of SBS television has gotten better in the past 12 months.

Our rebranding exercise earlier this year under the banner SBS: six billion stories and counting has refreshed our television, radio and online presence and given us a contemporary identity to build on over the next few years.

Making content that matters

SBS, on a shoestring, has created some of the most outstanding locally produced content seen on television over recent years and we have the critical and audience acclaim to back it up.

East West 101, The Circuit, Who Do You Think You Are? and then there is the ground-breaking documentary series about our Indigenous history – First Australians – to screen later this year, which will be one of the most powerful series to have ever been shown on Australian television screens.

We have won Logies and Walkleys, countless AFI awards and IF awards, sub-titling awards, prestigious international radio broadcasting awards and even two Oscars – which is testament to the integrity of our content.

On television, SBS has committed to producing a second series of The Circuit, East West 101 and Who Do You Think You Are? and with Screen Australia we will commission another landmark history series, this time on the evolution of multicultural Australia.

We expect this series to feature a credible, innovative and intelligent perspective on Australia’s recent migrant history – ranging from the White Australia Policy to a more recent push to expand economic migration.

We want a provocative examination of how Australia’s immigration policies have been motivated by shifts in the ideological, social and political climate. SBS has, at its heart, a commitment to understand and reflect Australia’s cultural diversity. The immigration policies of the past, present and future have helped shape that diversity and I am excited about the potential of this series.

All of these programs will be commissioned from the independent production sector in Australia – making the best use of Australia’s diverse creative resources.

We are a major stimulus to this community and our engagement research shows just how much the independent production sector value SBS’s support for their ideas. One producer said that the ‘freedom and respect’ that SBS showed to producers means they are willing to try harder to produce great television.

Others said we are one of the only networks to value the contribution of the production sector and that we were the only network willing to back a program such as The Circuit.

Other audience participants in the research recognised that the Australian dramas on SBS were high-quality and far better than anything being shown on other Australian networks.

One said they were surprised to see such high production values from SBS content and asked whether we had ‘robbed a bank’ to make it. I sincerely hope that SBS doesn’t have to resort to grand theft to continue to make great content in the future. But I acknowledge there is a very real disconnect between our bottom line and our ambitions.

Future plans

SBS and the Australian community face the very real risk that our unique content and multicultural perspectives will be lost or marginalised in the new digital environment. We face pressures from all corners on our already stretched financial base.

The costs of acquiring and producing content are increasing. Our audience is demanding a wider range of services that are on-demand and online and as I discussed earlier, there are new communities with pressing communications needs that are emerging.

This challenges our ability to serve them while at the same time preserving and expanding the services for established communities. New digital television, radio and online services will allow us to better meet growing audience demands. And with a real increase in our base funding we can achieve this.

There is a tough battle to ensure consumers switch to digital before analogue switch-off in 2013. Internationally it is recognised that new content is the key driver for digital take-up. Consumers don’t just want more of the same, they want a set-top box that will allow them to access new and expanded services from current broadcasters.

Public broadcasters such as SBS are well placed, although not well resourced, to experiment and innovate in the digital space.

In the UK, television viewers have just voted Freeview – the free-to-air multichannel platform – as the technology that has had the most impact on their lives. SBS is working with the commercial broadcasters and the ABC to launch a similar platform in Australia.

I think we can expect Australian audiences to increasingly realise the importance and potential of an Australian Freeview service with more than 10 channels available free-to-air.

But for SBS to have a real presence on this platform and other emerging platforms like digital radio, we must be able to fill a gap in the Australian viewing experience by expanding our range of services and creating new, compelling content for viewers.

These new services form the basis of our plans for the future. With increased investment by Government SBS plans to:

* Add at least 100 more hours per year of original Australian multicultural programming on television by 2012.
* Expand SBS’s programming of the best of overseas content across four digital television channels by 2013 starting with a full fledged second channel – SBS World next year.
* Progressively over the next six years establish nine, new digital radio channels, expanding greatly both the range and depth of multilingual service to more communities. Digital radio allows us to do this without confiscating time from established language groups on our analogue service.
* And make all of our content available streamed or on-demand over our online service.

SBS World will be the starting point for these ambitions and will complement our main television channel. It will show predominantly sub-titled content so that all Australians can access content in other languages.

We will dedicate more of the schedule to international content focusing on the Asia-Pacific region in which we live as well as showing more of the best international films.

We will expand our World Watch news service to accommodate new language groups and give more time to existing language groups.

Importantly, a well-resourced second channel will allow SBS to introduce English language tuition to support language learning and show for the first time children’s programming in languages other than English to support both language communities and language learning.

I acknowledge that these are ambitious plans but I equally feel they are both realistic and necessary.

To deliver these new and improved services to the Australian community will take a substantial new investment from the Australian Government – somewhere in the order of an additional $70 million per annum.

That may sound a lot. But when you consider that SBS has had no real increase in funds for many years now and we currently operate on a Government appropriation around one fifth of the ABC’s to deliver more complex services on a national scale, we think it is realistic.

We already complement our funding with the limited amount of commercial revenue we are permitted to raise. This is our only means to supplement our core funding.

The revenue SBS raises through all commercial activities is modest – $49 million in 2006-07. But, importantly, all this revenue is invested into producing content.

SBS’s commercial revenue pales in comparison to the commercial networks in Australia and even the ABC. In 2006-07 Channels 7, 9 and 10 had combined commercial revenue of nearly $4 billion2.

And while not permitted to carry advertising in its programming, even the ABC raised $154 million in 2006-07 from the sale of goods and services3. That’s three times the commercial revenue SBS generates.

While criticism is sometimes levelled at SBS because of its ability to raise commercial revenue, this revenue funds local content and better services and is essential to our delivery on the Charter. Without it, SBS would not be able to deliver services of value.

But now the time has come to address the shortfall in our core funding. SBS will be working with the Government over the coming months to strongly make our case for this investment for the benefit of our audiences and the community more broadly.

Conclusion

SBS’s contribution to Australia is to help foster a shared understanding of where we have come from, to ensure that everyone’s story is reflected in our creative and cultural identity, to give a voice to different sectors of the community in our national debates and to have different voices and different languages and cultures, reflected back to all Australians.

SBS is the only media organisation in Australia that can ensure that all Australians can engage with the issues that matter and participate in national public debate, regardless of their cultural provenance or language proficiency.

This is a valuable contribution that SBS makes to enhancing social inclusion and improving cultural citizenship in Australia. It is what sets SBS apart from other Australian or international media organisations.

SBS is passionate about our civic, cultural and creative contribution to the Australian community and we hope we will get the support needed from the community and from the Government for our ambition for an even greater presence in the Australian cultural landscape.

In 2008 the need for a distinctive and courageous broadcaster like SBS to reflect the reality of modern Australia is more vital than ever.