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SBS to launch Mandarin News Australia

SBS is about launch Australia’s first and only free to air, locally produced in-language Mandarin news service.

SBS is launching a new Mandarin television news program with Chinese-Australian News.

To air each Wednesday on SBS TWO the service will have English subtitles, so it can be understood by non-Mandarin speaking Australians.

Mandarin News Australia will be Australia’s first and only free to air, locally produced in-language Mandarin news service.

The presenter is Zhou Li (pictured).

An SBS Press Release says the weekly TV news and current affairs program will cover “stories for Chinese Australians, including a brief wrap of national and international headline news, major local Chinese arts, cultural, community and sports events, profile pieces on successful Chinese Australian business people, identities and inspiring locals, major stories from China, and stories on visiting Chinese dignitaries and artists.”

“This new program will deliver relevant news and current affairs to one of Australia’s largest language communities,” Dirk Anthony, Director of Audio and Language Content, said.

It will be complemented by a new online Chinese Virtual Community Centre at sbs.com.au/chinese featuring both SBS and user generated video, audio and text. The website offers local and international news and current affairs, business and finance, sport, lifestyle, Australian life and culture, immigration information, and community events.

Users will be able to upload photos, videos, and event listings, write blogs, comment on all content, with Mandarin and Cantonese audio and video plus traditional Chinese scripts and English text.

Mandarin News Australia will be broadcast on SBS TWO each Wednesday at 5.30pm and is repeated on SBS ONE each Sunday at 6:35am.

It begins on November 24th.

25 Responses

  1. Thanks to SBS I am able to enjoy the news from the Australian Chinese communities giving me subtitles in English. As a English-speaking viewer I am interested in the Chinese and Vietnamese countries.
    – Thanks SBS

  2. Great news! We watched it in class today and the students loved it! Absolutely a great help with regard to students studying Chinese. Very relevant in today’s Australian society. Many thanks!

  3. Quote
    “chk chk says:
    November 10, 2010 at 9:32 am
    a complete waste of public money…”

    Do u have any idea how many Chinese would be watching this and how much SBS can make out of commercials(possibly in Mandarin) while broadcasting this?

    And btw, it’s not public money and SBS is not federal government

    Cheers,

  4. This is great! I would hope at the very least that locak Greek and Italian programmes are made as well within the next 5 years like this one.

    Well done on SBS and it’s fantastic that it’s not just the ABC advancing and I hope the ABC is not stealing funds from the SBS.

    I disagree about a NZ news service – there is absolutely No need for this… and Sky already offer a NZ news service daily in the afternoons, here in Australia, whilst ABC has its own correspondent there. There is not much to talk about anyway in NZ as it’s so close to us and lots of NZ content is on local news anyway.

    There should be greatened emphasis on Chinese, Greek and Italian news & services on SBS TV. This is very welcome – well done!

  5. Completely agree, there should be a news bulletin from NZ.
    TVNZ News at 8 would be the obvious choice – the only difficulty would be getting permission from the ABC to rebroadcast some of their stories that are included in the bulletin. Hopefully this could be sorted out in the interests of public broadcasting.
    There should also be a bulletin from the UK and possibly also from other English-speaking countries, including Canada and Ireland.

  6. I think this will be good for people learning Mandarin, I commend SBS for the inclusion of subtitles for this bulletin. It would be even better if they had subtitles for all foreign news bulletins, and I think it should be compulsory for all foreign content to have English subtitles.

  7. I might not understand the Chinese language, but this is a great idea. Especially for students and others who are studying the language. Good work, SBS! You were due.

  8. All of these extra things people are asking for here require more money. Maybe we’ll see them in the future? I understand why SBS went with an in-house Chinese news service first – because their bulletins that come from CCTV4 are nothing more than a state mouthpiece from a totalitarian government.

    Kevin, the reason why SBS’s WorldWatch bulletins don’t get subtitled is because they’re hot off the satellite. Subtitling takes a long time.

    PS: I’ll give this a go if they put it up on their web-player (bad time for me).

  9. @michelle – yeah I sould have made my point clearer……i didn’t mean the service to be IN irish….but to have irish news. So many other countries have a service / bulletin to inform the expats what’s making the news in their countries – it’d be nice to have an irish one 🙂

  10. @ brisvegas – I thought the Irish people speak English. I thought it is only a small minority of Irish people that speak everyday Irish. I believe most of the television networks in Ireland devote most of their programming in English.

  11. ok, this is great….and I appreciate how so many of the different cultures that exist in Australia can get the news from their home countries on either ABC / SBS

    However………. how about some news from Ireland? We have french/spanish/italian/german/greek news etc etc etc………….how about Irish? As an expat, I’d like a news show that I can touch base with. It’s not like there are too few Irish (or irish descendents) in this country.

  12. an interesting idea of SBS considering Les Murray’s claims that SBS isn’t “for the ethnics” yet this sort of programming, while it has merit, plays directly into the “ethnic” space. Although at least the subtitles will make the program accessible to English-speaking viewers but I suspect few English-speaking viewers will be that interested.

    Interesting, too, to see if SBS will afford the same privilege to provide a similar service in other languages to serve (for instance) the Italian, Greek, Indian or Vietnamese communities as those communities have large populations here as well.

  13. @ southpatt – the story says “To air each Wednesday on SBS TWO the service will have English subtitles …”

    Hands up who wants to see Kevin Rudd as the relieving newsreader when Zhou Li goes on holiday. Think of the ratings!

  14. While not an expert I’m sure at least one of the community TV stations would air local Chinese news so the ‘first’ claim might include a bit of embellishment.

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