SBS accuses Nine of “knowingly misleading Parliament”

Yesterday at Senate Estimates Hearings in Canberra SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid accused Channel Nine of “knowingly misleading Parliament” in its submission to the government’s inquiry into the sustainability of the film and television industry.

Nine has previously claimed SBS is using public funds to drive “up the cost of commercially attractive content’’ that fails to reflect its multicultural charter.

But yesterday Michael Ebeid said, “Given the kind of content we have, I actually find it hard to believe that we are constantly, or consistently, in any way up against Channel Nine for similar content.

“I do admit that from time to time we would be interested in similar content but it’s content that is actually quite rare. I’m not aware of any bidding war.

“More often that not when we rarely -rarely- come up at the same time for the same piece of content, given the size of their budget versus ours we generally walk away. There’s no point in competing with someone who’s got a budget 8 to 10 times yours.

“I find their submission to be inaccurate in the extreme.”

The SBS boss was asked about its deal with US-based Scripps Networks content for SBS Food Network, which Nine had wanted for 9Life.

“From my perspective I think Channel Nine knowingly mislead the Parliament in their submission. I have evidence from Scripps to say that there was no bidding war. They claim that they were interested in the Food Network when in fact they were not when, we were doing the deal with Scripps,” he replied.

Ebeid said the Food Network is 100% paid for by advertising with a “modest profit” to SBS for content investment.

SBS was also asked about its deal for UK drama The Night Manager, which it made early at script-stage.

“The reason we do that is because we get it a lot cheaper than if we waited for the production to be made and then we (would) have to pay a lot more,” said Ebeid.

“Channel Nine said in their submission that we should have a programme like that on a second window. That is exactly what we did do. We had it on a second window with Foxtel. Foxtel aired the programme first and we had it as a second window. So again, a little bit of homework would have avoided such a false statement.”

Discussion also turned to hit drama The Handmaid’s Tale with Ebeid questioned about criticism that commercial operators didn’t get the show for themselves.

“Well they could have but SBS did do a strategic output deal that Handmaid’s Tale was a part of a much bigger lot, which is why I reject the criticism that we somehow outbid another network,” he replied.

“It is a free market and our Charter does talk about our principal function of having multicultural, multilingual content, but there is certainly nothing that says we shouldn’t have good content on SBS. That’s effectively what the criticism is saying: anything that is good content shouldn’t be on public broadcasters, which is slightly outrageous.

“As I said in my opening statement, we do from time to time acquire broader content so that we can attract a broader audience and cross-promote other pieces of content that are more Charter-aligned, if you like. We’ve been doing it for years, but now that we are doing it online the only reason for complaints is because of Nine’s ownership of Stan, effectively.

Ebeid suggested Nine wanted Handmaid’s Tale for its subscription service.

“I know that for a fact.”

Updated: A transcript of Nine CEO Hugh Marks appearance at govt inquiry into industry sustainability indicates “second window” comments were in regard to The Handmaid’s Tale not The Night Manager:

Hugh Marks: Again, it is about sustainability of our industry—this is the inquiry. We’ve managed to reduce Nine’s cost base over the last three to five years by about $100 million, or 12 to 15 per cent of our cost base. We’ve done that at the same time as maintaining our volume of local content, because local content is the future of our business. What that leads to is: where’s that cost saving coming from? Often it means we’re dropping the costs of our international content acquisition. That’s an important element in the overall sustainability of our industry—that we continue to be able to fund volumes of local content that audiences watch. But, of course, we can’t fill our schedule just with local content because it’s very expensive, so we’ve got to have a balance between local and international content. SBS are running around the markets with seven people—I think I’ve got two people at the television market; they’ve got seven—and we’re routinely finding ourselves bidding on movies. With great shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, we’d put in a very commercial offer. SBS could have taken a second window after Nine; they still could have had it available, but they chose to outbid us and take the first window. So we’re in this environment where we’re facing public broadcasting competition for dollars, which is driving up the cost of international content.

A Nine source is also maintaining it bid for Scripps Network food content.