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SBS in the firing line

Media tracks more dissent from within SBS in the wake of cuts to the Subtitling department.

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More dissent from within SBS in the wake of cuts to the Subtitling department.

Yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald carried some pointed criticism of Managing Director Shaun Brown.

“It’s cultural vandalism,” the former unit manager, David Djuric, says. “Subtitling used to be at the core of SBS as a cultural institution. We translated the world for Australian audiences and made it accessible. Now all you get with SBS is mindless crap like Top Gear and Bear Grylls.”

One SBS subtitler said of Brown: “One of the first meetings he had with us he said that he thought it was ‘quite hard to eat your dinner and read subtitles at the same time’.”

Insiders say morale is at rock bottom, claims the article.

Brown has defended his tenure, boasting of an increase in investment in commissioned programs from about $4 million in 2002 to about $30 million in 2009.

You can read more at the Sydney Morning Herald.

5 Responses

  2. who is David Djuric?
    Top gear… one of the World most viewed programs… is mindless crap…. lets go back to watching Rex the Dog… cos that aint mindless crap…

    Cup Fever FTW

  3. If you want mindless crap on SBS, look no further than their soccer broadcasts. Top Gear and Man V Wild might not be high class television, but they’re definitely a lot more intelligent than watching a bunch of idiots kick a ball around on some grass for f— knows how many hours.

    Anyway, whilst I agree with Shaun Brown that SBS shouldn’t be airing too many subtitled programs during prime time, I don’t think that they should be reducing the quantity (or worse, quality) of their subtitling services. If they need to make cuts then they should cull poorly rating Australian programs like that dreadful history quiz show they commissioned and that sports show. Or maybe they could get rid of the non-subtitled foreign language news programs they air – some of which cater for audiences of only a few thousand people and are probably only viewed by a couple of hundred.

  5. I wonder where Shaun Brown has plucked the figure of $30 million dollars from? Perhaps it’s this kind of hyperbole that has got SBS into so much difficulty. Does he mean financial year 2008-2009? From my observations SBS has virtually stopped commissioning from the independent sector – what have they spent in the current financial year 2009-2010, and what are they projecting for 2010-2011? And if it’s a lot less than $30 Million dollars – why the disparity? If $30M represents overcommitting against projected revenue targets that have not been met, how is that a good thing?

    It’s clear the government is not impressed with SBS senior management or their strategic thinking. The staff are obviously distressed, and the independent sector are treated with contempt. Isn’t it time to get rid of the so-called NZ mafia?

    Donald McDonald got rid of Jonathan Shier, and although it’s been a long way back for the ABC, they now have a management team that is respected in Canberra.

    Let’s face it, SBS is suffering from an identity crisis and Shaun Brown is not the guy to lead SBS through these challenges.

    Does Australia really need two national broadcasters in a mulit-channel digital universe? I wonder if are watching the death throes of SBS?

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