SBS1 falls to eighth place
SBS1’s audience share has slumped to a new low, with the multicultural broadcaster’s main channel beaten for the first time by the digital channels of all three of its commercial rivals.
Sunday night saw SBS1 with a channel share of just 3.5% – eighth for the night.
While SBS1 last month came in behind 7Two and Nine’s Go, last night saw Ten’s sports channel One also beat SBS1 thanks to Mark Webber’s Formula One victory.
The cash-starved channel relies partly on advertising for its funds but it struggles to afford competitive programming. The key show in SBS1’s schedule last night was an episode of Who Do You think You Are? featuring the British TV presenter Davina McCall, who is unknown in Australia. The show rated just 237,000 viewers, 39th for the night.
When Mumbrella interviewed SBS boss Shaun Brown earlier in the year he argued that the broadcaster needed greater funds. he told Mumbrella: “It’s clear to everybody that the gap between us and what other broadcasters have at their disposal – including the ABC – is significant.”
- Seven: 24.6%
- Nine: 24.0%
- Ten: 18.8%
- ABC1: 12.4%
- GO!: 6.0%
- One: 4.3%
- 7TWO: 4.1%
- SBS1: 3.5%
- SBS2: 0.8%
- ABC News 24: 0.7%
- ABC2: 0.5%
- ABC3: 0.3%
Ratings: Ten eclipsed by Webber win
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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Australia is a country that’s racially peaceful, but as we can see elsewhere in the world, that’s certainly not the default state. For people to become comfortable with diversity, we need to experience it; our community’s diversity needs to be reflected in its media. That said, I don’t know whether SBS is the best way to achieve that goal. It is a centralised self-nominated authority on ethnicity and multiculturalism, but its role and impact on Australian race relations is marginal.
We shouldn’t be surprised that SBS is slipping. Under Shaun Brown, the broadcaster has steered towards direct competition with commercial networks. And it’s like watching Paul Briggs trying to fight Danny Green.
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*British
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SBS doesn’t know what it is. Neither do the viewing pubic. No need to throw more money at it.
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Again it’s numb minded Australians consuming bad TV.
Could the small audience shares on SBS be a representation of how many intelligent people still consume commercial TV?
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How about SBS run the Hindi version of Wipeout or The People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea’s Funniest Home Videos? If you strip back the funding programming will always suffer (just look at the “quality production” coming out of the private equity owned networks)…
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Just my opinion, having worked with someone senior at SBS and who arrived when the changes were made years ago – they were far more interested in being big players themselves than doing the right thing by a channel. This person singlehandedly killed another powerhouse channel by making a ridiculous decision which served merely to get them a seat at a table with the big boys. They were finally fired from that channel after that decision cost jobs and careers – here’s hoping it happens again here, and its no surprise history has repeated itself. (Tim, I have deliberately left names and gender references out here so hope its ok – its 100% true and yes, I was personally impacted, along with about 30 other fantastic people, 2004)
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I still watch SBS more than GO and Seven Two.
I don’t have a problem with SBS being a commercial network, it still produces great content and brings shows other tv networks would never broadcast in primetime.
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In another courageous move they’ve moved The World Game to SBS 2 on Monday nights.
Creative.
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SBS is a great channel that I watch most of the time. The other channels offer very little in worth while and intelligent programming at all. The fact that a vast number of Australians like ‘Hey hey it’s saturday’ is a sad indictment on Australia – not a reflection of any failing from SBS.
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Way too much Soccer Bloody Soccer.
Everybody does love the neverending Nazi doco’s. Hitlers pet Turtles?
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