SBS diversity lifts on screen, but still lags for People with Disability.
SBS commissioned shows meet or exceed levels of diversity across most groups in the Australian community.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News, Top Stories
SBS productions are meeting or exceeding diversity found in the wider Australian community across most key groups including Women, First Nations, LGBQTI+ and Culturally & Linguistically Diverse.
But it still has work to do to better reflect People with Disability on screen.
SBS has published an overview of its performance against the SBS Commissioning Equity and Inclusion Guidelines (2021-2024), reflecting an uplift in diverseity across its commissioned content slate.
A three-year period spanned 62 programs, showing SBS and its production partners either met or exceeded targets set for on-screen, off-screen and career progression roles.
While often being above industry and population levels, people living with disability were represented in 8.3% of content, less than half the 17.7% of Australians in the community living with disability.
SBS Director of Television, Kathryn Fink, said: “SBS is committed to ensuring all Australians see themselves – their communities, their cultures, their stories – reflected on our screens. That’s achieved not only through improving the representation we see in front of the camera, but importantly, in those who create and craft these stories. We’re pleased to see the impact we have had in our content and within the sector through the delivery of the SBS Commissioning Equity and Inclusion Guidelines over the past few years.
“We’re grateful for the collaboration of our partners in the sector in sharing our commitment to ensuring that whoever you are, there are no barriers to prevent you from sharing your story and pursuing a career in this industry. The last three years also provide valuable data in setting the direction we need to take in the years ahead to drive ongoing change and deliver on our distinct purpose for all Australians.”
SBS uses data collected through its participation in The Everyone Project, an industry-wide commitment to measure cast and crew diversity across registered Australian film and television productions, led by the Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network.
SBS also uses Scripted Target Reports which are completed by partner production companies for scripted programming. The results for SBS Scripted commissions also included achieving on-screen genre-specific targets, such as ensuring at least two people who identify as culturally and linguistically diverse and/or First Nations were cast as main characters in programs. Shows focused on a particular under-represented community had further off-screen targets met for ensuring representation from that community, as well as at least 50% women, hired in key writing, director/producer and production roles.
Head of Creative Diversity, TV and Online Content, Yana Groves, said: “The SBS Commissioning Equity and Inclusion Guidelines set an important standard for our sector. This includes essential accountability for SBS to deliver on audience expectations as Australia’s multicultural and First Nations broadcaster. SBS remains committed to leading the way for a more inclusive Australian film and TV sector, both on-screen and off-screen. This is a key component of fulfilling the SBS Charter, made possible through these Guidelines and other inclusion initiatives we invest in. SBS remains committed to providing meaningful career development opportunities for under-represented talent, to support more enriched, diverse storytelling for all Australian audiences.
“I’d also like to acknowledge the work of my colleague Michelle Cheng, Head of Creative Diversity (on parental leave), who embarked on this important work over several years, developing and implementing SBS’s first set of guidelines. She has also led the development of our next iteration, with our Diversity and Inclusion Project Officer, Isabelle Beaupré, to be launched in the new year. I’m proud to be overseeing this project, working with the SBS Commissioning team and our production partners, and I look forward to an exciting year ahead for Australian storytelling on SBS.”
Next year, SBS will publish its second set of guidelines, to cover the period from 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2028. Until then, SBS is extending the existing targets to apply for a fourth year, from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025.
The SBS Commissioning Equity and Inclusion Guidelines (2021-2024) Target Report.
4 Responses
Years ago I thought about having a dinner, inviting many of Australia television’s biggest names and then get them to help me pitch a television network for the disabled (like NITV). Featuring shows with confirm disabled characters (like Ironside, Funky Squad, Upper Middle Bogan, The Librarians, Breaking Bad, Family Guy, Lift-Off, Avatar) I say confirmed disabled characters because if I had 5 cents for everytime someone told me Mr. Bean was autistic, I’d make Gina RineHart look like a battler (though maybe because there’s not much speaking, we can air them for the deaf… as well ass public domain silent movies) and shows made by disabled people (that they could only get aired on Channel 31), for the news have it read by disabled television reporters. Part of the funding (of course we’d pay those disabled people who could only get aired on Channel 31 for their work, can be done by NDIS providers wanting to advertise on the neetwork
Yep, to me this article feels like its preaching to the choir. While one I’m glad how successful Michael Theo is this year, I can’t help but feel (not jealous) that he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if he hadn’t been on Love on the Spectrum… and I feel that show was wrong having just autistic people on it, as it should be a co-incidence two autistic people fall for each other… I mean who’s the producer Eric Cartman (Cartman Finds Love reference)
Northern Pictures tried a LOTS-like show featuring people with non-autism disabilities/from other underrepresented groups in Better Date Than Never. However, it didn’t really hit the mark in terms of ratings or social media reaction, etc.
Love Me As I Am had an OK mix of autistics and people with other disabilities as part of its cast, however being a mere one-off documentary on SBS, it was never going to achieve the same amount of profile Love On The Spectrum or The Assembly did as multi-episode programs on the ABC.
Only the LOTS couples who were already together pre-show seem to have lasted the distance, from what I know.
As for Michael Theo, the two extremely likeable females he was paired with on that show (Amanda, then Heather) probably deserve more credit than anyone seems willing to give them for helping Mike in the viewer popularity stakes. He’ll probably do OK in 2025 but probably needs to move on from a rather cozy ABC/Northern Pictures safety net after that.
Plenty of talent work with preferred creatives. I’m not so sure we should be advocating for those who require support to enter the industry to be denied.