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SBS2 launching June 1st

SBS2 will offer movies, news, current affairs, the Ashes, Tour de France and more -but there is a disclaimer.

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sbs-twoSBS will launch SBS2 on June 1st -ahead of knowing the outcome of its triennial funding in the federal budget.

Speaking at the Get Ready for Digital conference today, Managing Director Shaun Brown indicated the new service could only continue with government support.

“SBS2 means more of the world’s best stories, more in-language and first run films, more sport, more news and current affairs and more chances to engage with the best that the world has to offer,” he said.

“SBS2 will not simply be a time-shifted version of SBS1 although we will increase the opportunity for Australians to access our quality news, current affairs and sports content that is so popular on our main channel.”

In July it adds the Ashes in England and the Tour de France.

“We will show both events live and free-to-air. The Ashes, as a sport on the anti-siphoning list, will be shown live on SBS1 while the Tour will be broadcast live, free-to-air on SBS2, streamed live online and shown live on SBS1 between the Ashes matches,” said Brown.

“SBS has been a passionate supporter of keeping key sporting events on free-to-air television and on SBS in particular.

“SBS stepped into the anti-siphoning fray in the lead-up to the 2005 Ashes cricket series after public outcry and ensured that coverage of the most exciting Ashes series in the history of the game was available freely.

“SBS has also played a vital role in delivering football and cycling fans regular doses of World Cup action or showing international fixtures such as the Tour live and free-to-air.”

The Ashes and the Tour will be followed by an expansion of international film. SBS also plans to expand its in-language entertainment and documentaries.

sbs2However, Brown added,”But let me be clear. We are launching SBS2 ahead of Government funding assurance because we believe without new services like this the public will remain indifferent to digital take up. But only Government support will ensure we can continue with this new service.

“And without Government support we certainly won’t be able to implement the full range of SBS2 content. Which is why our intentions to expand our in-language news services and add English language tuition and in-language children’s programming are on hold.

“We will also not be immediately able to include the planned strand of Asia-Pacific focused content,” he said.

SBS has asked the government for funding which would enable the launch of a fully fledged SBS2 and, in the future, expansion to SBS3 and SBS4.

32 Responses

  1. SBS 2 will offer more sport? Oh, god! That’s all we need. More sport! As if SBS 1 is not already infested with enough sport. We now have even more reason for turning to renting DVD’s.

  4. Will this new channel be seen in regional areas or are these announcements once again being made and when the new channel is launched it will be “oh yes by the way regional areas might or might not get this channel”

  5. The ABC3 and additional channels from SBS require extra funding from the federal government. Do you really think this will happen, with the current economic climate?

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the new content on SBS2 goes the way to FlyTV on the ABC, when they realize they can’t maintain the channel with current funding.

  6. This is all smoke and mirrors, as all it means is that the foreign language news services that exist already as a separate multichannel on the existing sbs2 will over time be replaced with other non-news programming, including live trour-de-france when it does not clash with ashes test cricket on the main sbs1 channel. A gesture of goodwill to the federal government ahead of the may budget my a#$e! The spin and marketing spivs have really taken over the asylum haven’t they?

  7. Good news.

    SBS picks over the scraps and uncovers some good overseas programs. I think the other networks would have overlooked shows like South Park, Mad Men, Mythbusters, Shameless, Top Gear etc.

    So I am confident in their ability to buy some quality content. And their daytime repeats are interesting anyway.

    The extra flexibility of a another channel should help with scheduling more sport especially football without disrupting their regular programming.

    In the past SBS have had rights to competitions like FIFA youth world cups or the World Club Championship. But they did not show many matches because they did not want to interupt their schedule. I hope to see more football.

  9. @Evil

    Was trying to avoid numbers in that post (trying to be technical without being technical). Basically, I was working off One being ~3mbps (Ten being 5 and One being ~13), so if ABC wanted to run ABC3, they could drop ABC1 down to 4Mbps, ABC2 down to 3 and you have 3Mbps for ABC3.

    Basically my point was, if they were wanting to accept it looking like One SD, they could squeeze in three SD channels, maintaining HD at its current (poor) level.

    ABC can also get nearly a megabit by dropping 5.1 audio on ABC1, and getting rid of datacasting/dig.

    ABC run the same transmission setup as Ten, giving ~23Mbps to play with. SBS get ~19.1. Currently SBS1 and SBS2 are using 4Mbps, so that fits another SD channel in almost exactly with the change (an increase in power levels would negate the effects).

    Basically, it hinges on the difference between ABC HD and Ten HD being enough for an SD channel to fit in, so if ABC went down the path of Ten in regards to quality (as bad as ABC2 looks already), they could.

    I’m not saying I want them to, but management aren’t that smart, the general public want channels channels channels.

  10. If this is the case, then how high is the posibility that the government will give each network another channel to use its set of frequency. Is there not enough?

  12. @Matt – Ten don’t allocate that much more bandwidth to OneHD than ABC do to ABC HD AND now that they’ve dropped to 1440x1080i, thats actually less pixels to compress than 1280x720p anyway. It’s about 9.6 vs 12Mbps.

    Bitrates on ABC1 and TenSD are about the same, and ABC2 has slightly more bandwidth than OneSD. Regardless of their settings, it’s not feasible for ABC to introduce ABC3 unless they drop ABC HD entirely.

    And I’m not sure about ABC, but due to SBS’s transmission setup (designed for better coverage), they’ve actually got 3Mbps less to play with than Ten anyway.

  16. @Andrew B: A number and a name doesn’t make a channel. Just like on an analogue TV presetting Ten as both 1 and 10 doesn’t make two transmitters. The only difference with digital is that you don’t have to program the stations in to those slots manually.

    There are two channels on Seven, 1 SD and 1 HD, not 4 SD, the rest are just labels.

    As for fitting a lot of SD channels in, it depends how much quality you are willing to sacrifice. There are many ways to do this balance, Ten for example puts a lot of emphasis on making One HD look good, at the expense of Ten itself and especially One SD. ABC focus on making ABC1 and ABC2 look good, with HD running on about the minimum needed.

    In other words, ABC are in a position to squeeze a third channel out, but ABC4 (news) would be taking things too far.

    SBS just need to do a technical change to their transmission to fit another SD channel in, though it might lead to some viewers losing reception of SBS altogether.

    Also, SBS advertising is regionalised, into something like 11 markets.

  17. sbs2 replaces the sbs news channel. If you check your epg, a couple of months ago they updated their channel listings and put sbs world news under the sbs 2 channel, while simu-casting sbs on sbs3 & 4.
    Im not sure if you can have 4 sd channels plus 1 hd on one frequency. I was always lead to believe that 2 sd and 1 hd was pushing it, and you could only ad channels by switching to mpeg4.

  18. @ Evil: My understanding is you can have 4 SD’s and 1 HD – like 7, ABC and SBS do already (even though most of the channels are simulcasts).

    Because ABC and SBS do not have the complications of commercial metros and affilliates, I’d suggest that SBS2 and ABC3 (if given go ahead) would be available nationwide on the same date as there is no additional infastructure needed and no additional work to deal with advertising on regional ABC and SBS (SBS advertising is already national anyway).

    And yes – does SBS2 replace SBS news or in addition to SBS news?

  20. Really, i didn’t realise that’s how low the bandwidth was for each channel.

    I guess it only serves to further confuse me as to why the government decided to base our digital tv broadcasts on an outdated system (mpeg2) instead of using mpeg4. Yet its too late to change now, or in the next couple of decades, as people have already spent thousands on upgrading their tv sets and video recorders.

  21. So this’ll be replacing “SBS News” right?

    Paull: There simply isn’t enough bandwidth for ABC1, ABC2, ABCHD and ABC3. One could argue there isn’t really enough bandwidth for two SDs and an HD.

  22. Great News, it seems like they will be expanding their football coverage, more international matches. And i bet it will launch in the cairns area before ONEHD launches in cairns on SC10.

  24. Props to whoever wrote that press release as it explains SBS2’s remit and context whilst publicising the Tour and the Ashes in the context of Australia’s ridiculous anti-siphoning laws. Channels Ten, Nine and Seven could take a leaf out of their playbook.

  25. Well, that leaves channel 7. Although ABC was meant to be launching abc3 some time in the not too distant future.

    As for the content on sbs2. Well… not my target market. I think it’s good that there’s a channel that caters for the international market. From personal experience (having traveled to thailand) i realise how annoying it can be to not have channels that are in your own language. Fortunately the place I stayed had cable tv, and so there was an australian channel, as well as a few other english speaking channels.

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