★★★★★ 0/5

“Naysayers don’t understand”: SBS defends VICELAND

SBS director of television says channel rebrand will remain on Charter.

8
Leave a comment

2016-10-17_0125

SBS director of television and online content, Marshall Heald, has responded to recent criticisms of plans to replace SBS 2 with SBS VICELAND.

Writing on SBS Online he says SBS plans to work with VICELAND’s US parent “to produce Australian programs”, adding that the “naysayers of this venture don’t understand … when public broadcasters try to innovate” in a fast-moving media landscape.

“Re-launching SBS 2 as SBS VICELAND takes our commitment to a new level with a truly cutting-edge, contemporary mix of local and international programs, made by young people, for young people,” he wrote.

VICELAND will supply “linguistically and culturally ­diverse programs that have great synergies” with SBS.

“This idea that because Vice is in the United States, that they are producing only Anglo-Celtic programs is factually incorrect. Certainly, some of the programs are a bit confronting,” he wrote.

But in the UK VICELAND launched on September 19 peaking at less than 14,000 in the first two weeks, with some periods when nobody is watching at all.

“When you get down to very small viewerships, it’s never going to be exactly accurate, but zero means zero. The big takeaway is that almost no one is watching,” said Tom Harrington, an analyst at Enders Analysis.

“Rather than acting as some sort of millennial catnip, VICELAND has shown that it faces the same obstacles as all other broadcasters, and has no clearer idea of how to surmount them,” he said in the analysis.

VICELAND UK said: “Judging a new channel on its ratings when it’s just out of the blocks is extremely premature. Looking at VICELAND  in the US after six months, the average audience age dropped by nearly 20 years, its audience is growing week by week, and our programming is Emmy nominated. In the coming months we expect to mirror the same success here in the UK as well.”

Source: SBS, Financial Times

8 Responses

  3. The ratings in the U.K says it all.This already smells like a disaster for S.B.S

    And the fact that they keep referring to these programmes as being made by young people for young people suggests that there is nothing for people of a ‘certain’ age like me.

  5. And until SBS detail a program schedule, the naysayers (and everybody else) won’t understand.

    I’m not the target demographic, and there isn’t much on SBS2 that I watch. That said, I keep reading that the target demographic don’t watch broadcast television.

    I’ll also bet that there will be very little “vice” involved; except that it deputises for other programming.

  6. I know that Vice’s YT channels, and now Viceland TV, have a well-deserved reputation for stiffing & shafting almost everyone they touch. That, and Vice’s breathlessly clickbaity & “edgy” style with very little substance – journalistic, informative, or entertaining – behind it, are reasons I’ve been critical of SBS Viceland.

Leave a Reply