In addition to a couple of mean spirited shots at Mary Kostakidis and Julian Burnside, Paul Sheehan writes a puzzling column today in the SMH, rightly welcoming the death of one size fits all television broadcasting and yet attacking the one niche broadcaster that attempts to present something different.
This core will react with outrage at the very notion that SBS be sold. All middle-class welfare recipients think the Government has spent the money well, and it is an investment in “quality”.
The reality is that SBS is now standing in the way of quality. The Government could raise, and save, billions of dollars by selling SBS and its digital spectrum, and use the proceeds to invest in communications infrastructure far more diverse, sophisticated and interactive than the one we have now.
Instead, the Howard Government, coddling the commercial networks at every turn, has delayed, diminished or deformed the introduction of the digital era and continues to micro-manage the process.
Kostakidis, and the era she personifies, is gone. SBS should go with her.
Of course quality like pr0n is in the eye of the beholder. Sheehan likes pay, I think it’s largely dross. Though I do agree that the digital world offers tremendous possibilities and those might undermine SBS’ future anyway.
I’m very interested in how much different the Australian broadcasting landscape would look without SBS as it’s currently constituted, though unlike Sheehan I’d suggest that it would be the poorer…..at least in the near term.
Eleswhere: Margaret Pomeranz talks about cultural genocide and fingers Gerald Stone as the trigger man.
The argument that pay channels would balance the loss of SBS is as laughable now as when it was first proposed.
You call it dross Phil, I would call it content overload. Call me simple, but I enjoy my TV “programmed”. So do the majority of viewers, hence the exceptionally tiny small PAY ratings outside of sport, and British TV re-runs.
SBS has for years presented a panorama of quality TV from all corners of the world, sub-titled it, and shown it to an interested, and stable viewer-base. They do it on a tiny budget too. It’s actually one of the ’straylia’s great cultural assets. It encourages curiosity, and a broader view of the world, while being uniquely Australian - and figureheads like Kostakidis are part of the reason why.
Actually, that was the SBS prior to the present management who are offering a host of budget knock-offs of bad commercial TV content ideas. And so the content suffers. It ain’t pretty, but resuscitation is only a decent board member or two away I reckon. Oh, and a govt, or minister that cared would help.
I was just going to write a letter to the Herald about this. Sheehan completely misses the point of having a broadcaster like SBS.
First, his main point is that its audience share is a small minority of people, but he fails to recognise that to those people it is an invaluable service. This is especially so for radio, which “barely registers a pulse in the radio market”.
Then he fails to understand the difference between ratings as percentages of the population and a qualitative ‘regular viewers’, which would include all people who watch something on SBS at some point in the week. 7 million for the latter is not surprising, nor is their total audience share rating of “3 or 4 percent”. Plus, these two do not conflict.
He also reckons we should all get Foxtel if we want to see something else on the news apart from Shannon Knoll’s shaving skills (re: media watch last week). I personally do not want to be a customer of Rupert Murdoch in any way, shape or form, but least of all his pay TV service. More generally though, one would have to be conscious of the fact that all news content on Foxtel is, in a way, sanctioned by Murdoch (it’s not quite like that of course, BBC World for instance, but still).
SBS might be going through some tough times, and bad management doesn’t help, it’s why David and Margaret jumped ship and moved to ABC after all, but SBS is a much needed broadcaster as it caters to an otherwise ignored market, albeit a small one.
If it were up to Sheehan and the logic presented in this column, anyone in the bush would have to go without any commonwealth services, because the market is too small (false analogy I know, SBS is not government owned).
I’d miss Komissar Rex. They should make him a news reader.
Another reason why in the case of Italian Programming is the increase viewership of RAI International on both FTA Satellite and Foxtel which gives Expats 24/7 Italian TV of a wide variety including news every hour or so - compared to say 1 or 2 movies or shows per week. Same with the Narrowcast radio service ReteItalia run by the owners of Il Globo & La Fiamma Newspapers providing 24/7 music/sport/news and has seen here in Perth the demise of at least 1 Italian Language Community Radio Program.
This is the same with Greek & Lebanese Programming.
“Another reason why in the case of Italian Programming is the increase viewership of RAI International on both FTA Satellite and Foxtel which gives Expats 24/7 Italian TV of a wide variety including news every hour or so - compared to say 1 or 2 movies or shows per week.”
Case in point.
SBS broadcast the Inspector Montalbano series on FTA on Sunday nights - with English language sub-titles. Result?
The viewership for the programme expands due to greater access. Australians taste the Sicilian culture. Greater understanding, Italian TV moves out of finite ex-pat audience, cultural experience shared.
Remember that Paul Sheenan doesn’t like “multicultural industry” and anything associated with it. He wrote an entire book ranting against it. No surprises that he doesn’t like SBS.
via collins:
I agree, but the pont I was trying to get across is the costs of the rights to these programs would’ve have increased, or licencing deals altered so that programming not being shown on the non FTA streams, are available for purchase by SBS.
For example, on the RAI International Asiasat 2 service, which can be seen via FTA Sat, they are unable to show SERie A Football, because it is shown on the Encrypted Pas 2 version, which the rights are owned by World Media, who onsell it to Optus Vision and Foxtel, as well as via smartcart subscription system.
http://www.international.rai.it/engl/distribution/oceania/states_oceania.shtml
Another example is the San Remo Song Festival, which is shown in Italy and on RAI International around Feb/March, but doesn’t get shown on SBS, until May/June, and even then, it’s only the finals, and not the heats.
The same goes for most other Language Groups.
I gave Sheehan my Wanker of the Day award for this when I read it this morning.
SBS has an important role to play in Australian society. Obviously, it is not a role that Howard and his racist band of ignorant White Australia xenophobes like Kevin Andrews can be expected to encourage.
Sheehan’s got that right.
If Sheehan stopped picking on SBS for a while and went after Howard successfully on the issue of Network-cossetting tinkering, he’d be performing a useful task.
Instead Sheehan is a bully. He’s picking on SBS, the weakest manifestation of the Australian media muddle.
Show some guts Sheehan and get in the main game.
If Sheehan could help produce some decent digital media outcomes, we’d hardly miss SBS.
So, what was this article about? Paul Sheehan…likes Foxtel.
Riveting.
I like stuff too. Can I be a syndicated columnist?
I hope for Sheehan’s sake that nothing he wrote could be construed as advocating a “secondary boycott” of SBS.
In case the AFP are reading, I just want to put on record that I’m in favour of everybody buying every product, ever.
Citizens! Defend freedom and buy more stuff!
“I’d miss Komissar Rex. They should make him a news reader.”
The truth is the real symbolic figurehead of SBS was not Mary but Rex teh dog. Everybody loved Rex. Whenever he went off air hysterical german shepherd breeders around Australia would call wanting to know when he was coming back. They couldnt live without Rex. Women would ring up crying if he got hurt in an ep. The pretty boys who were his handlers were secondary, it was all about Rex. It was amazing the way people loved Rex. Rex, Rex, rex,….
Ah they were halcyon days, filled with memories of Rex. Often, afer a few drinks down the pub, we imagined episodes where Rex was let loose in the coridoors of SBS, strewn with ham rolls which led all the way to certain offices of of upper management…in the end we came to believe that only Rex could fix the things other people had broke…god knows the Labor party was nowhere to be seen…
It was Paul Sheehan, wasn’t it … who earlier this year or last year devoted an entire op-ed to the fact he turned on Foxtel to watch some US college basketball match and they had lawn bowls or whatnot on instead? How hopeless Foxtel was for not having this important event on live? What were they paying for if not that? Prompted a snippy reply from Fox in the letters to editor. Perhaps he’s had unexplained “technical problems” with his feed since then and is getting back in their good graces.
Quite right. Sheehan completely missed the point in that blather this morning.
Talk about dumb down. What does he mean that ‘ethnic’ doesn’t mean
anything any more. People coming to this country from other cultures have
a lot to teach us. This must be very bad if Mary Kostakadis and Margaret Pomeranz are taking a stand.
I live in the country, and one of the conditions (l5 years ago) was that we get SBS, as I couldn’t imagine life without it. SBS is unique in the world!!
Living in America and England, they don’t have anything like it over there.
It’s an icon for God’s sake! Who do we write to? What can we do?
Lesley
My wife and hannah never miss Rex.
I was saying to friends and rellies in the room a few nights ago how nice it is to watch a well acted, produced, directed and written series like “The Eagle’ when the voiceover said ‘That is the final episode of “The Eagle’, you can buy copies of the DVD…..”
We have 3 series of “Inspector Montalbano” on DVD and Italian friends were overjoyed that we loved the show and had a great time watching some episodes with us, translating what was said and correcting the sub-titles for us.
*Sigh*
I really miss SBS.
Why would a commentator, of all people, want to shut down one of the few serious outlets for news and debate in the electronic media in this country? Aren’t commentators the kind of people who would want more serious discussion and debate?
Doubt very much that it would ever happen, though. The political class - including right-wingers like Sheehan - probably only watch the ABC and SBS, all their whingeing about bias notwithstanding.
What right-wingers really fear is serious journalism and discussion of serious issues.
Um, it hasn’t gone off the air yet. I’m watching it as I type this.
Sheehan:
Jeebus what a dork, he probably wets his pants with excitement at the Sizzler salad bar.
It’s a different SBS.
Heh.
People forget that it was Labor under Hawke (with Keating Treasurer) who made the two most serious attempts in the 1984 and 1987(?) Budgets to amalgamate SBS with the ABC. Radio 2EA/3EA was a bit of an Al Grassby brainfart before the Liberal Government poured money into it as the price of crushing 3ZZ, and SBS TV has to be acknowledged as the one thing the Fraser Government actually did right.
I wouldn’t bother looking to the ALP for SBS salvation.
Speaking of Fraser.
And Stone uses the language of culture warriors to defend the commercial approach.
Which of course is just bullshit, which elites? 75 year old Stefano and Maria from the outer suburbs? In this he really means that gutting SBS as it currently stands is a political act, not a commercial one.
You see, that’s the beauty of SBS, 70 year old Stefano and Maria from the outer suburbs are the target audience along with inner city thirty somethings Damian and Samantha, I’ll take that broad church over Stone’s commercial imperatives any day because it’s a winner in terms of community.
Phil:
Okay. Sheehan seems to be madly in love with corporate socialism and business welfare for the dud “commercial”[wtf??!!] networks who are terrified of a teensy-weensy bit of real competition. That’s his problem, poor little diddums.
If he was fair dinkum, he would be asking some very hard questions about the sorts of ads being run on SBS and what the real commercial value of these ads is in the market. Surely the lords-and-masters-of-the-entire-Universe at SBS these days wouldn’t have stooped to running them at “mates’ rates” for a political/social purpose, would they?
Anyone in the advertising industry care to comment on these ads and what they might cost on other networks?
[L-O-L!!]
As for La Pomerantz’ “cultural genocide.” There really are some people who should never open their mouths unless an auto-cue directs them to.
Hannah’s Dad is right. Shaun Brown is interesting in promoting more than just Old SBS + Ads; he knows full well that the audience which can tolerate ads is a different audience, with a new sensibility and desires. One that can tolerate programs in bite-sized chunks, for a start.
Can he and SBS find an audience of those people who like quality, as exemplified by RAN and The Circuit? If they were to onsell those shows, would they go to the commercial channels or to Auntie? (I think they should onsell, btw, since the licenses for the programs are ultimately owned by the public and should be used to maximise the audience for the shows. -)
He is actually committed to a balancing act. He wants a new audience because he needs a new generation and more folks to justify the government investment. But the moment SBS looks like a commercial channel, the government will sell it. Why wouldn’t they?
I do believe that the working people in the organisation who are implementing the advertising policy are also committed to quality. At the coal face, they are simply desperate. I fear that the logic of a commercial tolerant audience will ultimately make them irrelevant, but I suspect they can’t think it throught that far.
The logic may simply be that a) the situation is stuffed. b) there has to be more money and the government right now won’t supply it. c) commercials will make things happen. d) build an audience, make good things, and let the future take care of itself.
But that logic gainsays the fact that Brown and the Board to some unknown extent want the change as a benefit in itself, for ideological reasons.
There are two internal reasons for wanting ads. One is that the money is not tied to the government, and that means freedom. The second is that the internal program promotion keeps people after the end of the show - SBS holds its own audience for longer. And that turns out to be a true effect.
Most evening ratings for SBS put it on average around 5 or 6, with the ABC around 15 or 16 (speaking very broadly). When we look at the capital city figures, they are a couple of points better - so access to signal is making a very, very big difference. The single most valuable thing that could be done for SBS is to put it somewhere other than UHF. At least we know that SBS will get decent access under the digital regime, but by then the audience will be fragmented more by ABC2 etc etc.
The situation is a mess. One thing we can say for sure is that right now SBS is very important to the creative health of the screen sector. It provides an alternative outlet, takes more risks and provides more voices.
To lose it would mean the end of hope.
While the word bias is being bandied around as the latest oogabooga word, let’s just mention Foxtel is probably the most biased network there is. There is nothing they can’t put a rightwing spin on. Of course that wouldn’t affect Paul Sheehan, who is not in the least credulous.
The decline of SBS is just another nail int the coffin of multiculturalism.
Personally I like the way it became a sort of up-market proponent of sub-cultural values. But thats probably just me hanging on to my youth.
I think they should keep SBS and dedicate it to cosmopolitan coverage of News and Current Affairs throwing in a few Arthouse movies. Repeats of old British TV series would be nice.
It should, as Dr Knopfelmacher once acidly put it, go back to its original mission of “providing a bit of cheap continental culture for bored Anglomorpihc intellectuals wasting away in Ockerland”.
David Tiley:
Thoughtful view of the situation …. but that good old standby still keeps popping up: who benefits?
Phil:
It is television as a whole that has now lost me. Alright, I am simply one individual ex-viewer but not necessarily a lonely one; there might be quite a few others out there who resent being treated like mugs and have have made the conscious decision to not swich on their TV set.
The current SBS shemozzle was my own tipping-point; for others it may be something else …. but I’m getting along just fine with the TV set turned off
The single most valuable thing that could be done for SBS is to put it somewhere other than UHF. At least we know that SBS will get decent access under the digital regime, but by then the audience will be fragmented more by ABC2 etc etc.
For years we rarely if ever turned to SBS as our reception was so bad. Then we had Foxtel for a few years, but still rarely turned to SBS as there were 20+ other channels competing for our attention. Then we got rid of Foxtel and got a digital set-top box - now we regularly watch SBS, much more often than ABC2. We get excellent reception, of course, and it’s at number 3 - right next to the ABC - on the remote. Funny how these little things can make a big difference.
Its funny but SBS has always had a european flavour in a multicultural cloak. Not much asian or pacific island influence, lots and lots of soccer. Now soccer is a bit of hot property and some people want SBS to go away. Makes you wonder. Did I see more soccer now on Foxtel?
Ah, now that is a question….
In Paul Sheehan’s view, the government gets to sell a valuable asset and then not have to fund it. He is probably wrong - aside from the spectrum and the physical establishment, SBS has fuckall programming to sell. It licenses it all.
The theory generally is that SBS can be a bit commercial but not too much. The good bits are supposedly protected by the charter and the magnificently endowed board. And SBS gets a lot more luverly money to spend on exciting programs.
I am sure the current government things that it has to keep SBS going or the NESB vote will kill them dead, but selling commercials means it can cut the budget. This has already been influenced by a significant cut in the last budget, which failed to renew support for sports rights purchase.
You’re living on borrowed time Greg. Schweinhund catlover!
Jack, it’s pretty obvious you never had any youth.
I’m kinda inclined to agree with Jack here re ” a sort of up-market proponent of sub-cultural values”. That kinda programming and some of the “As It Happened/Cutting Edge” docos is about the only reason I watch SBS now.
Although “The Great Australian Albums” series was an excellent idea, very well realised and in a manner that the ABC couldn’t quite do and that where the commercials would have no idea that it could be done.
However:
or the fact this evershifting feast you call “multiculturalism” is not something that can really be tied to the fortunes of a cash-strapped channel owned by a privatisation-focussed government.
and
Well that’s what we seem to have the commercials and ABC for now. Though yes it would be nice if some broadcast channel (or DVD distributor) would dig up stuff like “Sleepers”, “The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin” or “A Very British Coup” instead of retreaded Brit Comedy Classics introduced by another inane blathering TV “personality”.
And yes, I also agree with David T. that SBSi is one of the few commissioning bodies left willing to take a punt on a bit of out there creativity.
But let’s face it folks, broadcast TV in general is becoming more amd more moribund as the web 2.0 slowly but steadily white ants the MSMsphere. Whenever I turn on the box now for a bit of broadcast channel surfing, I’m generally struck by how predictable, conceptually sluggish and desperately and stridently tone deaf it is about keeping your finger off the remote. Kinda like opening the door on an obssesed ex-lover wearing crotchless undies…on their head. Some of the ads are quite good though.
PS: I never liked “Inspector Rex” anyway. Now a show called “Captain Tiddles of the Space Patrol” would certainly get my attention.
And it’s a damn shame that Troy Kennedy Martin’s 1986 MacTaggart lecture, “Opening up the Fourth Front’: Micro Drama and the Rejection of Naturalism” is not on line.
Maybe if I hold my copy up to the screen?
Well worth a read if you can find it. One of TV’s greatest content generators uncannily and accurately flagging the advent of You Tube et al and their impact on the global attention economy a full decade before the web itself started getting properly woven.
I knew this article struck a familiar chord…here, it has the same bones as:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5419
Hmm, two opinion writers each get it into their heads to write a long, gushing, schoolgirl love letter to RupertTV.
My PR spider-sense is tingling.
Of course, it could just be that two sane, rational individuals each independently actually do like Fox…actually, nah…that’s just preposterous!
Kommissar Rex is an interesting case - an excellent show that had been topping the ratings in Europe for years. SBS actually started to show the Kommissar Rex series at a time when the long-running show, in Europe, was coming to an end.
This is reminiscent of the way the ABC used to operate when I was a kid - we’d watch Tom Baker episodes on the ABC years after they ran, in Britain, on the BBC.
Not exactly strong evidence for the efficiency or the ability of a government-owned and controlled network to respond quickly to the wants of viewers!
I’m disappointed with the “new look” - specifically the advertising. Previously it wasn’t too bad, but it is now really intrusive. Going to have to re-wire the mute button to something a bit more “industrial” methinks!
Given they’re the only station with the cajones to show South Park, Drawn Together, etc. Not to mention being a great way to try improving your language skills (even though the translations can be a bit random!) with the subtitled shows/movies.
Such a pity they no longer have the “cult films” - bring back Des Mangan for this and they’ll draw in a lot of the younger crowd.
As for FOX - if I want to watch 30 channels of sport (half of which are footy) then it’s great - otherwise no redeeming features whatsoever.
Margaret is a bit strong (sorry JG but the one person who should never lose sight of an autocue is Ray Martin - Mr Plastic himself!), but given they’re losing skilled people all over the place it is a real worry.
Given we almost never see such arguments about ch. 7/9/10 it’s a bit indicative of how such a “marginal” station actually holds a bit of a place in our culture.
SBS MD Shaun Brown opines in the SMH.
As a NESB (Non English Speaking Background) World Football loving migrant I have followed SBS vicissitudes with interest.
I don’t agree with Sheehan for a minute. But SBS and the concept of it needs to be examined.
In my opinion SBS TV was not what the migrant population envisaged in the 70’s. From what I heard in the Italian community they hoped more or less a TV version of SBS Radio. That is an ‘Italian Program’ then the ‘Russian Program’ and so on.
What we got was a very high quality niche TV. Which showed foreign language programs with English sub-titles. A real revelation for many. Who could forget the amazing Rainer Werner Fassbinder Berlin Alexanderplatz or the serialisation of Giuseppe Verdi life.
The issue though was whether this sort of TV was attracting the NESB audience it was intended to do. I suspect it didn’t. Migrants who were interested in their community maybe were not right into a season of Ingmar Bergman movies.
Of course cafelatte sipping, inner suburban people like me loved it.
The area that was originally intended by some migrants for SBS seems to have been partly filled by community TV Channel 31 which enables communities themselves to create their own programs.
Fortunately SBS got in World Football (which Sheehan typically denigrates) that was loved by all and anyone who loves the sport will be eternally grateful for all the efforts in showing Australians the World Game.
However apart from some honourable mentions there is little ‘multiculturalism’ at SBS nowdays.
Foreign language programs are banished either in the morning or in the wee hours of the night. There isn’t a foreign language spoken on SBS until 10.30 pm or so. Inspector Rex and Ispettore Moltalbano are the exceptions.
Of course SBS still tries to extend their multicultural credentials by showing programs like ‘Kick’ and those very interesting series about young Muslims.
But they are a rarity as well. I love ‘South Park’ and of course my all time favourite program ‘RockWiz’ but what’s so ‘multicultural about it?
What about that series about that guy in America who had all those wives? What so ’special’ about it? It is a fairly mainstream anglo program.
Unfortunatley market forces have stripped World Football away from SBS. What was ‘wogball’ is now hot property and apart from the World Cup all the A-League matches and the National Team matches are on Pay-TV.
(interesting to note that SBS was derided for having ‘too much soccer’, while coverage of AFL football on many successive nights, plus programs about it on commercial channels was seen as ‘normal’).
So if SBS has to be revived we need to think why we want it. Rather than becoming an under resourced, bad copy of the ABC with ads.
Helen
Ah, you are forgetting two things:
1. Foxtel is not a public broadcaster.
2. Foxtel’s audience actually makes a decision to PAY for the channel. If they stop paying, Foxtel stops broadcasting.
Are you suggesting a similar arrangement should apply at SBS?
The fact that the ABC carries British - and increasingly Canadian - programming, while SBS does the non-Anglo stuff is yet again testimony to the charade of multiculti. I love SBS - Inspector Rex, that late night Lebanese soap opera, the [Old] Worl News, The PBS Newshour with jim Lehrer, and of course the docos.
On this issue, the Luvvies are correct: The recent ‘embedding’ of the ads is nothing more than a Culture War salvo. It is mean-spirited and quite poitless from any economic position.
Nabakov
BBC comedies from the 60s, 70s, and 80s have long departed the ABC for Channel 7. And what a delight that Benny Hill can once more grace out screens. Let us pray it is a harbinger that the anodyne 1980s political correcness has finally left our shores for good.
“Not exactly strong evidence for the efficiency or the ability of a government-owned and controlled network to respond quickly to the wants of viewers!”
Have you watched the commerical channels lately, Timby?
So how much reality TV do you want to watch? There’s tons of shows that the ABC and SBS present that would never get a look in on the commercial stations.
Given the amount of dross on TV, I don’t have a TV anymore (I just watch DVDs on the computer and listen to Radio National).
But then, I’m a l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie, l*vvie etc
An interesting relationship between Foxtel and SBS I’d forgotten about: the premium World Movies channel sources most of its content from the SBS film library, and they now ’share’ the purchasing of rights to new films through an independent, though IIRC majority Government-owned, corporation.
That’s right, Guido, that model was recommended by the Galbally Report and by the 1978 pilot study into “ethnic TV”. The ‘multicultural’ rather than ‘ethnic’ alternative that came about was the result of pressure both by members of the Government who were concerned that it would exclude native English-speaking Australians, and by members of smaller language groups who were rightly concerned that programming in prime time would be dominated by the numerically larger communities.
A point of trivia: it was originally proposed that SBS TV not carry any news or current affairs service whatsoever, so as not to duplicate the 2EA/3EA radio news.
I just think SBS would be better able to fulfill its ‘multicultural’ values in a truly liberal TV environment. At the moment, with huge restrictions on the amount of free-to-air networks available, the amount of non-Australian content that can go to air, the ability of foreigners to invest in the Australian market, and on what the pay stations can and can’t own, commercial networks go for the simplest option - lowest common denominator.
Liberalise the TV market, and you might find that broadcasters, including SBS, want to start competing in terms of quality service, experimental shows, etc.
I don’t think it’s as if vague commitments by government or community groups to have ‘multicultural’ broadcasters or Australian content are any substitute for this.
So the point remains. Sheehan is really attacking a straw man. In general SBS is a English-speaking lovvie station (in the main), not one which is targeted at NESB Australians, as he seems to still argue in his article.
What a fucking idiot Sheehan is.
SBS 4eva!!!!!!
ditto that, invig
I just think SBS would be better able to fulfill its ‘multicultural’ values in a truly liberal TV environment.”
I don’t see how you can prove that.
Paul Sheehan says anyone “truly” interested in world news does “what he does” and catches their news on a range of pay TV channels. He clearly doesn’t realise that there are plenty of people out there, me included, for whom avoiding pay TV is a deliberate act, especially the type of rapid-recycle, short attention span news that dominates the pay TV channels (yes, I do check them out occasionally when staying in hotels for work - mainly to see if anything has improved, which it generally hasn’t. Do think David Spears does a good job on Sky, though).
Paul Sheehan, I don’t want to make media owners richer by subscribing to their pay TV stations. I want to continue taking my news from the public broadcasters and I insist on my right to quality news from this source. Even if Australia lost both public broadcasters, I would still never subscribe to pay TV, and I’m not alone. I’d then search for my news sources online, but I’d make sure to avoid sources owned by the same small pool of businessmen (who aren’t newsmen, and never will be, including James ‘name your bets’ Packer).
Long live SBS - and come back Mary!
I don’t see how you can prove that.
It depends what you’d consider proof, I guess, but how about look at the approach governments/communities take to TV around the world and how the liberal approach compares to the nationalist/protectionist approach?
It’s true, for instance, that there are national broadcasters in Britain, Canada, and even the US (of sorts), but they do so in the context of a large commercial television market.
Not proof, perhaps - but strong evidence that the liberal, non-protectionist approach to the TV industry is preferable and more resilient than other models.
Via Trevor Cook, there is this considered piece on the travails at SBS.
The problem with comparing those markets Tim is the same thing that makes the govt so scared to deregulate broadcasting: numbers.
The majors are terrified in Australia of splitting their already small audience into ball-crushingly small splinters, pushing revenues further down than they are already (and on a numbers basis, Australia’s tv ad revenues are significantly overpriced compared to other countries. I have no idea about radio).
And you can kiss all but the cheapest Australian made productions goodbye at the same time. The only ones that will get a guernsey will be the on govt. funded networks, or dirt cheap shit: 99% game shows and reality television, plus the two soaps that actually make money overseas. That’ll be it.
If you think the networks will be flooded with quality television cf. HBO, etc. in the states, you’d probably be wrong too. For the pathetic audience shares those shows garner, they’ll be way too expensive for the networks to consider. The only reasons they can buy the Sopranos, or Survivor or whatever and then show it at 3am is because they get package deals. No audience, no package deals, so you can kiss that goodbye too.
I’m no fan of communications industry regulation, given how very much of it is geared at cementing the power structures, rather than encouraging competition, but a free-for-all approach isn’t necessarily the best in this case.
Some of that is going to happen sooner or later anyway, patrickg.
If tv dies as a medium, people need to think strategically about how to fill the void for funding and distribution of what we might call very broadly “public interest vidcast”.
I’m very sympathetic to the save our SBS/ABC sentiments, but things are really morphing, and putting your faith for the future in the revival of institutions is going to lead to a lot of disappointed hopes, I suspect.
I hear what you’re saying Patrick, but I suspect Government isn’t scared of deregulation because of audience numbers as you initially suggest - I think it’s more to do with the undue influence of the existing competitors in the Australian TV market.
Hence the government has only considered those moves that protect the current competitors, and not moves that would open Australian TV up to new markets, and make it more competitive: there has been no real easing of the restrictions on foreign content, or foreign ownership, the introduction of digital television keeps getting pushed back… etc, etc.
The undue influence of Australian commercial networks on government is widely deplored: but the net result of the ‘numbers argument’ seems to be that it allows commercial networks to further cement their power and influence!
Paul Sheehan is, in his op-eds, little more than the print version of the various Greenfields and Strocchis. Good luck to him for earning a quid writing such tosh (on his laptop at the Toxteth Hotel? Who knows?). It doesn’t mean it has to be taken seriously.
Christine Keeler
In your Manichean straightjacket you completely misunderstand half the world. I have made it clear that I do not agree with Sheehan.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/08/27/sheehan-hacks-into-sbs/#comment-396869
Heh.
I *have* done writing on a laptop at the Toxteth Hotel, CK. Surprisingly pleasant on a warm day in the courtyard, especially now there’s shadecloth up.