SBS’ comedy platform The Backburner axed due to internal structure changes
SBS’ comedy news archive, The Backburner will close next week as part of an internal re-structure to create more efficiency, with some job losses expected.
The news comes after Michael Ebeid, managing director of SBS, flagged the closure in front of the Senator Scott Ludlam at the Senate Estimates.
The Backburner was founded by James Colley, who announced its closure on Twitter yesterday afternoon.
https://twitter.com/JamColley/status/871964340672380928
A statement from Ebeid on May 24, found its way to Twitter last night, indicating there were already plans in place to cut SBS Comedy as well as other verticals including SBS Sexuality.
On May 24, Ebeid said: “We have recently finished going through a detailed review of all of our webpages. We do that regularly, as you would appreciate.
“We have gone through to work out what pages are working well, what are not, what pages are contributing to our charter, what are not and what pages are simple there, as you say, to be able to bring in traffic to then cross-promote our other on-charter work, because that is incredibly important in the overall mix of what we do.
“We will me making some changes internally with our structure. From a user perspective, you will still be able to get pretty much similar information, but there will be some staff changes.
“We will most likely move some of the comedy resources into The Feed, which is doing a lot of comedy and it would be done out of there,” he said.
https://twitter.com/smurray38/status/871983538932916224
“Things like the sexuality site will be done out of the life site. We are just doing some internal structures to align editorially and just make it a little bit more efficient.”
When asked by Ludlam whether the changes would lead to redundancies, Ebeid said: “There are going to be a few staff changes in that mix, losses.
“There are two or three people whose contracts are coming to an end where we will not renew those contracts.
“Then there is going to be probably an equal number that will be employed in a different part of the organisation delivering similar content. But as I say, it is not about a cost-cutting exercise.
“It is about an efficiency in structure internally to be able to align our editorial responsibilities with what makes sense,” he said.
An SBS spokesperson said in a statement: “SBS has recently undergone a review of our websites and is making changes within its online team dedicated to exploring particular topics to direct more investment into distinctive content that goes to the heart of our Charter, ensure our content teams have a greater multi platform focus in the creation and delivery of content across genres, and to simplify internal structures.
“While the SBS Comedy website will no longer continue, our investment in comedy and satire is continuing but will be more focused on video content.”
SBS has said their comedy and satire online content will be managed out of The Feed going forward.
