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Axed: Mandarin News Australia

Exclusive: The axe falls again at SBS with its Chinese-language news show to end.

EXCLUSIVE: The axe falls again at SBS with its Chinese-language news Mandarin News Australia to air its final episode on Wednesday.

The locally produced in-language Mandarin news service began in November 2010, with English subtitles. It screened on SBS TWO each Wednesday afternoon and was replayed on SBS ONE on Sunday mornings.

But it has struggled to gain healthy numbers. Earlier this month it had 0 viewers according to OzTAM data.

SBS indicates the programme was part of the SBS Chinese Language Project, commenced in 2010.

An SBS spokesperson told TV Tonight, “Research with the community indicated that it was a good concept but potentially better as a daily service. SBS also believes it would be better to offer a daily service and that’s a concept we intend to examine in 2013.”

There were 4 staff contracted until the end of June. An editor will be working on Pop Asia and a presenter will remain with SBS Radio. Other staff are expected to continue on a casual basis.

News and information will still be available to the Chinese community through the daily Cantonese and Mandarin radio programs and online at sbs.com.au/chinese.

The final episode airs 5:30pm Wednesday on SBS TWO.

Over the weekend SBS announced the end for cult game show Letters and Numbers.

14 Responses

  1. @ roringdave

    I knew a family in the 20th Century that was offered an opportunity to do the TV ratings. I don’t know if it was OzTam or Nielsen. Also I don’t know if they had boxes or not. So I know it exists at least. Most surprising in retrospect due to the location and the improbability of it.

  2. @Tezza1972…I wasn’t being literal saying that there are 20 households in Australia with an OzTam box…but do you know anyone who has one? In my 42 years I have never known or even met anyone with a box…are they supposed to keep them a secret? Can someone post here if they have one?

  3. good riddance, what a waste of money……its all very well being sad about this stuff, but what is the point when hardly anyone watches it….Good move by sbs…please boost the budget of the multicultural world game…ta

  4. Doesn’t a ‘0’ in OzTam figures equate to “less than 1,000 viewers”? And @roaringdave – I understand that there are around 5,000 Australian households in the OzTam sample – 3,000 metro and 2,000 regional. At an average of 2.2 persons per household, there are probably around 11,000 people representing the entire country. Not a bad sample size.

  5. Interesting….seeing as how release of 2011 Census Data says….
    Mandarin is now the second most common language spoken at home after English

  6. wait, Nobody watched it? That cannot be right. I know some people who watched it… Does that mean Oztam is incorrect?

    I’m also absolutely sure that at SBS HQ they have all their stations playing.

    1. Some shows often pull a 0 in OzTAM. It means none of the homes with OzTAM people meters tuned in. MNA pulled a 0 in preliminary data on 6/6/12 on SBS TWO. Whether this reflects actual viewing numbers is frankly another argument.

  7. Wasn’t the SBS1 replay shown at something like 5.00am on Sunday mornings? And they are wondering why 0 people were watching it? The scheduling was hardly encouraging people to tune in.

  8. Shows how ridiculous ‘ratings’ data really is. It just means that none of the 20 people in Australia with a ratings box watch Mandarin news.

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