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ABC man becomes new boss at SBS

SBS has announced a new managing director in Michael Ebeid, currently Executive Director of Corporate Strategy and Marketing at ABC.

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SBS has announced a new managing director in Michael Ebeid, currently Executive Director of Corporate Strategy and Marketing at ABC.

Ebeid will replace Shaun Brown who was due to retire in April 2011 but extended to July. Brown has been in the role since 2006.

Prior to the ABC, Ebeid spent ten years with Optus Communications where his last role was Director of Commercial Operations for the Consumer Division and nine years at IBM. He was also on the Board of ASTRA from 2000 to 2004.

SBS Chairman, Mr Joe Skrzynski, said: “Mr Ebeid brings to SBS a special set of personal and professional skills, with the right blend of operational and strategic experience from his twenty-four years in the Media, Telecommunications and IT technology sectors which represent the three arms of the convergence changing the entertainment and information landscape in Australia.

“He is extremely well suited to lead SBS in its mission to promote social harmony by helping migrants to settle and participate fully in Australian society, and assisting all Australians to understand and appreciate the benefits of cultural diversity.

“As SBS moves into its fourth decade, its Charter is more vitally relevant than ever. Not only is our population manifestly more complex and diverse, but today there are three million Australians whose first language is not English and that is twice as many as when we were first formed,” Mr Skrzynski said.

Ebeid said:“I am very excited to be joining SBS, an organisation that has been inspiring its audiences to explore and appreciate our multicultural world, and has helped contribute to a more inclusive Australian society. I am looking forward to ensuring that SBS grows its relevance and reach at a time when the media landscape and audience habits are fundamentally changing. SBS is an organisation that can and does make a difference, and it is an honour to lead it.”

Skrzynski paid tribute to Shaun Brown for the major changes and achievements during his management, including the new free to air digital channels, the Pay TV channels, the many awards and rating successes of outstanding programs, and the high reputation that SBS enjoys in its specialist news services.

Ebeid will commence on June 13.

7 Responses

  1. Merging the ABC and SBS brings together 8 channels that can be programmed to be compiementary rather than competitive. For a start, ABCNews24 will be improved with the SBS news content and, as viewers, we’ll see less repeats and a diversity of reportage and opinion. Result! Some jobs will have to go in the streamlining. Fine! Leave ABC One as it is, skewing older, but use it to screen things like Dateline and East West 101 that appeal to the same core ABC demo. ABC2 can incorporate a lot of the SBSONE acquired and commissioned factual and entertainment content appealing to 16-39s like Mythbusters and Who Do you Think you Are. Leave ABC3 as it is for the kids. Replicate the ABC channel controller model for the newly “acquired” channels and programming strategy. Relaunch the existing SBS channels as ABC 4, 5, 6 for sports, arts/music, drama, (maybe launch ABCD and make it an HBO style home for domestic and foreign drama and movies, and launch ABCE for Entertainment!). Retain potential to raise advertising revenue across only 2 of the channels. If one was a drama or movie channel, programmes must screen uninterrupted. An 8th channel (the current SBS4) could be a true multi-cultural channel, core SBS values, appealing directly to ethnic communities with over 50% local content. It could even be called SBS for old time’s sake, and they can get half their content immediately through C31’s best community programmes. (C31 is doing what SBS started doing 30 years ago anyway!) Next, merging executive, management, admin and commissioning functions will save millions that can go back into production with a bit more content risk-taking. Also, there’s no reason to drop any SBS Radio stations, just as there’s no reason to have two sets of public servants paying them. I started to favour a merge after getting enraged when I heard anecdotally that SBS and ABC programmers were bidding against each other (with my tax dollar!) for shows that would never screen on a comercial channel, thereby driving the price up. If they were smart they would collude and drive the price down!

  2. I definitely don’t want SBS to go away. I watch it more than some of the main commercial channels. So I wish him luck. By the way I also watch SBS World News. To me it’s the must see news of the night. Not everyone has Pay TV. Although the one thing I wish is the government would give them the money to run BBC World News 24 hours on a third/fourth channel. So that free-to-air TV had access to a 24 hour international news service. I’ve said before I’ve heard the New Zealanders get it. Why not us?

    The other shows I love are Mythbusters, a lot of the documentaries (mainly science and history ) and Who Do You Think You Are? I’m also enjoying the Denmark stuff on Friday on SBS2. I’ve also watched Inspector Rex in the past. Thank you.

  3. Ronnie, I wish somebody would just merge you & ‘Mike’ already! Just because you personally don’t enjoy SBS Television’s (not forgetting all the good work they do on radio & online) content, doesn’t mean they should be shut down.

    Reg says, “Other than for the radio services, foreign films shown late at night, and the foreign language news programmes in the mornings…” So, other than most of their output? What you’re attempting to say is you have a problem with only SBS One’s primetime line-up (their most visible programs)? Well, then! Shut the whole place down!

  4. I agree with Owl. Other than for the radio services, foreign films shown late at night, and the foreign language news programmes in the mornings there is little that is provided by SBS that the ABC doesn’t already do. Even the news service on SBS seems pointless today – given the choice of SBS World News, compiled almost completely from reports from other broadcasters and by reporters in Sydney and full of ad breaks, or News 24’s The World, with many ABC reporters on the ground overseas, I would pick the latter. SBS TV really should just be turned into a single commercial-free ABC channel focussed on multicultural and foreign language programming.

  5. I really wish him well because I think he has a huge job if he is going to return SBS to its’ former relevence. I am quite critical of SBS because I really believe they have wavered from the Charter which Mr Skrzynski referred to. They have some great shows, but they are hidden amid ad nauseum cooking, football and cycling shows. Multi-culuralism is more than just this. I am also very critical of them (and all but the ABC) interrupting movies for ad breaks (invariably for SBS itself and a very limited number of products – which are repeated each ad break) This disrupts the filmmakers’ intention and ruins the flow of the film. I really hopes he gets them back on track to being the exciting innovating stations they once were. They might even start to rate!!

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