Howcroft calls for SBS to move headquarters to Parramatta
The chairman of television industry marketing body Think TV has suggested multicultural broadcaster SBS should move its headquarters to Parramatta.
Speaking at the Screen Forever conference in Melbourne, Russel Howcroft – who is also GM of Network Ten – made the suggestion in response to a question about whether the two publicly funded broadcasters ABC and SBS should be merged.
Opposing that idea if such an organisation carried advertising which would compete with the existing free-to-air players, Howcroft said: “SBS should move to Parramatta. That should be their head office. They could clearly differentiate the organisation and go to the – as we know – absolute centre of Sydney, which is the centre of all sorts of ethnic groups.”
Howcroft: Let’s recreate SBS and stick it out at Parramatta
SBS is currently based in Artarmon, near North Sydney.
Howcroft went on: “It’s absolutely vibrant out there in Parramatta. And wouldn’t that be an interesting statement?
“Let’s not merge it, let’s recreate it and stick it out in Parramatta.”
Think TV’s members include Seven, Nine, Ten and Foxtel, but not SBS.
Howcroft, who opened the conference before sitting on a Q&A panel hosted by the ABC’s Virginia Trioli, also hit out at the influence of digital players such as Facebook and Google on marketers, and said that Think TV had been created to counteract this.
He said: “We read almost daily about the supposed demise of TV as if the millennials are not going to flop on the couch and ask to be entertained when their kids are born.
“The demise of TV is a distorted narrative that’s driven by the self interested technology companies in the west coast of the US. Contorted by the pressure on marketers to appear innovative, in search for their next job and bent out of shape by the prism which many of us in the media bubble inaccurately view the viewing habits of the general population.
“And it has to stop, because it threatens to damage brands, production values and jibs, and our industry as a whole.
“To be fair, TV has not always done a great job at putting the facts straight. It’s not right and this needs to be fixed.”
Trioli told delegates to the conference that she would put Howcroft’s suggestion to SBS boss Michael Ebeid when she interviews him on stage at the event on Thursday.
A spokesman for SBS told Mumbrella: “With employees across different cities, SBS tells stories from around the nation. The location of our headquarters is of no consequence. We’re focused on investing our resources in great programs, not moving offices.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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A very clever suggestion.
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As an employee of SBS I’ll reply to this.
What a dumb waste of tax payer money.
It would cost minimum $100,000,000 for a move of any kind.
Money that could be better spent on making content and hiring multicultural Australians.
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I suppose SBS can share premises with the Powerhouse Museum on its new site. Let’s hope Parramatta has plenty of vacant real estate to cope with all the new arrivals. Actually, Fairfield, Blacktown or Penrith would be more plausible locations if you’re looking for diversity. Parramatta is a bit upmarket these days. The new Paddington, as it were. There is however many a true word spoken in jest. SBS’s Artarmon premises, the former John Sands printing factory, would be worth a fortune to a developer. SBS has been toying with the idea of selling ever since the ABC moved out of Gore Hill.
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I’ll do it for half that
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Most ethnics live out that way so get with your charter. Smart logical suggestion, and while Russel is at it, the ABC should be split in two for the following reasons and part HQ’d in Toowoomba and or Albury:
ABC/SBS. These organisations don’t need a budget cut, but a directional reset.
Filling in the holes in Australia inadequately met by commercial media is their primary task. It is a big hole that the metro centred ABC/SBS simply cannot address in the current unified structures. The regional economics in the commercial world can never allow the level of dedicated local programming that regional Australia is missing out of. Indicatively regional affiliate FTA news budgets are, in total (ACMA 2013 data) circa 10% of metro FTA TV (news and current affairs spend). After decades of trying, regional TV gains just 22% (FY16) of FTA advertising revenues for 35% of the population. This 10%/22%/35% ladder is the unfairness of regional Australia. Not enough money to make localism as in-depth worthwhile as in a lush metro media markets.
By implication the ABC should be operational split into regional ABC and Metro ABC. The regional ABC should have its own CEO based in one or both new ABC regional centres-say Albury and Toowoomba – and rebroadcasting only what it selects from ABC metro that is appealing to its regional audiences. It should have the population proportion of the >$1b pa ABC budget – 35%. Ultimately the ABC should have separated CEO’s reporting directly to the Board.
The ABC does, but should not compete at the level it does in the metro markets. ABC TV ratings over the past 25 years has risen from circa 16.5% (1991) to 24.8% (weeks 28-32 2016), and in metro radio over 3 decades , from 10.8% (Survey 1, 1988) to 22.1% in the latest 5/2016 survey. No one could argue that the ABC, in both cases is filling a gap, but one could also argue that it is displacing commercial enterprises, especially in those Current Affairs and News programs where the ABC/SBS represents a view incompatible with regional audiences and conservative voters in metro markets.
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I’d take a job there in a heartbeat if they moved to Parra, or further west (Penrith or Blacktown).
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As a former employee of SBS (15 years) I am appalled at the US centric direction SBS has been led by its flashy MD Michael Ebeid and it’s thrice failed news director Jim Carroll. The organisation is not delivering on its charter obligations and should be disbanded – not merged. The SBS brand has been trashed and it’s 2nd channel re-branded as Copeland in a pathetic attempt to pull in a younger audience for the network that is doomed from the start. In the meantime changes to the news and dateline under Jim Carroll have seen viewers of those programs slump to an average of 124000 viewers and a loss of the 65+ years demographic audience who have deserted the network in droves. Carroll already has form with all 3 commercial networks who terminated his services and Mr Ebeid has been playing a smoke and mirrors marketing campaign with the Australian public whilst purging and replacing many of the dedicated, loyal and talented SBS staff who forged a once great national broadcaster. Call me disgruntled if you like – it’s public knowledge that dissent at SBS will not be tolerated. Our politicians need to be brave and stand up to this rot masquerading as a multicultural public broadcaster.
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Copeland? I think you mean Viceland. It’s one of two North American cable channels now carried by SBS, the other being Scripps’ Food Network, home of the notorious Mystery Diners, The Great Food Truck Race, Cake Wars, etc. ad infinitum.
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