Will SBS survive the rise of the multichannels?
Sunday saw SBS celebrate its 30th anniversary with an audience share of 4.2%.
As is often the case these days, SBS1 was beaten by a digital channel, in this case, Nine’s Go.
It’s a situation that’s only going to get worse for the nation’s multinational broadcaster as the digital channels continue their rise. Once Ten’s Eleven launches, and even more homes become able to pick up the HD multichannels, SBS’s share is likely to slump even more.
Yesterday, SBS didn’t have a single show in the top 50 rating programs.
And while SBS’s primary task has never been one of delivering ratings, advertisers pay to reach audiences. And that’s something SBS is not achieving. Which creates a vicious circle of declining ad revenue which makes it harder for the organisation to fund more attractive programming.
The decision facing the government quite soon is whether it wants to help SBS survive the rise of the multichannels. Having paid the big networks quarter of a billion dollars to launch what’s turned into a nice little earner for them, it’s going to be a bit hard to justify watching SBS sink.
Tim Burrowes
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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1st run films at 10pm on Saturday and Sunday nights, ads during programs, programs repeated ad nauseum – come on guys there must be something other than Hitler documentaries to show occasionally – it’s a no-brainer why SBS has seen an audience dive. Unfortunate that South Park and Top Gear have gone to commercial networks but perhaps they need to support their excellent and widely-appealing shows like Skins with better timeslots. It seems SBS doesn’t want to entertain its audience. World News is great, and other than ABC, the only worthwhile news program in Australia, but is it necessary to have 2 hour long bulletins within 3 hours of each other? Popular film and TV shows should go to 7:30-8:30 rather than languishing at an hour when most working professionals are heading to bed.
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Interesting. Last night I watched ep.1 of Virtual Revolution on SBS1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/
This is a terrific, big-budget, BAFTA-winning doco from the BBC about the history of the internet. There were interviews last night with Bill Gates, Al Gore, Biz Stone, Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee … serious stuff. But looking at my (digital-heavy) Twitter feed I couldn’t believe I seemed to be the only one who was watching it. I’ve no doubt if it was on ABC1 I’d have seen a lot more tweeting.
I realise this program isn’t ever likely to attract a big audience, but the point is it failed to find it’s natural audience, at what I’d have thought was a good time to schedule it. No-one knew it was on, and I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t been living in the UK for last 4 years and heard about it there. That’s a serious concern for SBS, if they can’t even get the low-hanging audience fruit
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“And while SBS’s primary task has never been one of delivering ratings”
And here lies the problem. What is the point of them even existing if they only ever cater to a Neiche audience. The few excellent programs they do have dont get watched to the levels they perhaps deserve because they can only promote those to a small audience base.
If you have a network that needs ad revenue to generate income to buy better programming and yet you hobble yourself by not chasing almighty ratings your not only doomed in the broader picture of the TV networks, your also setting yourself up to long term failure.
SBS is a wasted opportunity. Academics running a TV network simply doesnt work.
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There was a time when ‘bringing the world back home’ was sexy, edgy and kinda cosmpolitan… But when the world’s on a phone in your back pocket how does a multicultural broadcaster remain relevant? It becomes niche and gets edgier, sexier and more dangerous!
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In 1980 establishing SBS as a “multicultural” counterpart to the ABC was far sighted and brave. But now it’s outdated and out of favour. Take one example, with foreign films getting cinema runs, getting the audiences that would have watched them on SBS, it’s on a hiding to nothing there
Given the plethora of documentaries on Nazi Germany, I’ve taken to calling SBS Swastikas Bloody Swastikas. And don’t get me started on the eternal cycle of Inspector Rex and the incessant cycle of soft porn.
To survive, SBS will need to reconfigure itself; find new programming sources and offer something that attracts a new generation of viewers and programming
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… and all the time I thought they were catering to a Nietzsche audience.
Also, don’t forget the Stvdio deal – music shows I used to watch on SBS are now over there.
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If the is a charter for SBS, I don’t think profit is a word that will get much of a run. SBS does fill a need and sometimes that need is meeting just a few eyeballs. Keep going SBS.
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Oh PLEASE EDUCATED PEOPLE!
MUST WE succumb to politically driven commercial junk and fear driven propaganda the commercial networks thrive on, or CAN WE PLEASE KEEP the ONLY (well ABC is OK) NEWS WORTH WATCHING, along with world films and documentaries that are not benign, predictable, American smultz.
Unfortunately, the reality is that 4% is probably a fair reflection of the percentage of the Australian population with a BRAIN and a GLOBAL VIEW in this country, who want independent and NOT commercially driven information and stories. The rest would rather keep their empty heads in the collective sand, and watch the footy.
How frustratingly predictable. No wonder we have such a brain-drain of the intelligentsia.
One thing we can do is for the 4% to be ADVOCATES of SBS and promote it to anyone who will listen to switch at least to the SBS World News. And for real stories and doco’s, and great world films.
Another is for advertisers (and ad sales guys) to remember that the 4% watching SBS are the smartest and richest group in the country. Just how Amex sell their expensive cards to the merchants. (They spend more)
SAVE SBS!!!
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R. Mugobme, while I haven’t had a good read of the SBS charter lately (how slack eh!) I believe that like the ABC they are not judged on their ratings but on their reach – that is, what proportion of people watched something/anything on SBS over a period of time.
For example, SBS typically does around a 15%-20% reach each day, around a 50% reach each week and around a 75% reach each month.
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Good point Jamos, but it’s not just the other 96% that SBS are failing to attract, it’s also the people who do want to watch SBS and the programming it offers, but quite often the programming schedule is ridiculously unrealistic. I just don’t stay up till midnight on a weekday, and have missed shows and movies I quite like or would like to see because of it. And some great films have been on a Saturday night recently (La Vie En Rose, Let the Right One In among others) but a lot of people would be out or entertaining on that night.
SBS has a lot to offer a lot of different people without having to dumb its programming down, but they don’t seem to want to give people the chance to fit it into their schedules.
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SBS I hope you are taking notes… your bullseye audience is “angry elitists”. Jamos maybe you can get a job on the programming committee?
I agree the news is the best in the country bar CNN.
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Shameless, Skins, International soccer, Tour de France, world movies & what’s wrong with Nazi doco’s – frankly our kids should made to watch them.
SBS need to pre-promote better, massage their programme format & pitch to the upper echelons who have discerning tastes. The Financial Review hardly circulates like the Herald-Sun but commands a CPM premium! I wonder why?
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SBS is the only channel that has news from around the world in the language of the country it is reporting on. Lots of great movies in a multitude of languages, documentaries, and multicultural newsreaders and program hosts. Give me SBS any time, the best channel on the TV
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I was beginning to wonder just how many bloody bodyguards Hitler had…
SBSs biggest mistake was chasing the advertising dollar so hard. Their core audience were willing to put up with the odd Lexus commercial between shows, but not erectile dysfunction and Harvey Norman ads every ten minutes.
They are now in a funding no-mans-land – too commercial to justify government handouts, and not successful enough to get their hands on enough advertiser dollars.
It will be a real pity, but I think the ABC take-over can’t be too far away.
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Adam, the funny thing is that their ad revenue does spike with events like the Tour de France and World Cups. That is, they are able to attract good ad-revenue with the right content, but that their ‘base revenue’ falls back to levels that they struggle to run the network at on a week-to-week basis, and more importantly to acquire or commission programmes that generate higher ratings that attract the advertising dollar. Mind you, Sean Brown is right that the other networks all passed on Top Gear!
And god bless SBS as they commissioned 10 x 1-minute animations from my wife’s company that went on to win ‘Best Flash Animation’ at the 2010 Australian Effects & Animation Festival, and best TV series in the Digital Media Online Festival as well as being a finalist at other awards here and overseas. Apologies for the shameless plug – but it’s important that independent Australian producers are supported and encouraged.
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Is it really only a 4% share, or are the pockets of the company recording the Oztam data being lined by their top clients 7,9, and 10?
Tell us Mr Burrows, when will you enlighten the market on just how accurate audience data collection really is? Or will doing this effect your own advertising revenue?
Long live SBS, for 30 years you have provided 4% of Australians with a fair and intelligent insight into news and current affairs, whilst providing a platform for thought provoking drama, film and lifestyle programming that can actually engage with an audience.
Gee Tim, maybe you could help the cause and lobby for some needed marketing dollars so that we can help educate this brain dead population of ours!
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To allay all the conspiracy theorists, both OzTAM and RegTAM are transparent and independently audited (albeit majority funded by the commercial networks, thankfully!).
Both services have a research Technical Committee that reviews the panel health, the technology, the processing etc, as well as monitoring all sorts of characteristics that can fundamentally change viewing behaviour (such as digital, PVRs, subscription TV, broadband etc) This committee consists of commercial FTA broadcasters, publilcy funded broadcasters (including SBS of course), subscription TV, media agencies and advertisers, and all representatives are provided reams of rigorous data and summaries on each of the panels performances.
So, to answer Thomas’ specific question as to whether it is really a 4% share for SBS, I’d say that within the usual sampling statistical tolerances, the answer is …
YES.
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Interesting, if slightly paranoid, question Thomas. John Grono’s already answered it better than I could.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
SBS gives a buyer an audience (reach) they can’t get on the 7,9,10 station groups.
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this article is ill informed … you can’t buy the SBS audience on the other FTA’s so it’s not a like for like comparison. It’s like saying ‘will David Jones survive the rise of 7-11’s’
all audiences aren’t created equal. a 37 yo male watching OneHD isn;t the same sort of 37 yo male watching SBS.
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Hi Pageview,
You may have missed my point. As a result of the rise of the new digital channels, SBS’s audience is smaller than it was before. Therefore it cannot charge as much for advertising as before. That will only get worse.
There may still be a hard-to-reach audience on SBS that is worth looking at for advertisers. However, they won’t be paying as much for it as they did before. That means less revenue for SBS.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
When Fox Sports took a chunk of the football away to show to (I’m guessing) even lower audiences, that impacted SBS as well. We are a die-hard bunch and the only reason I have Foxtel is for the Football.
I know SBS will never have the $ to match Fox Sports abilities in this space, but I really wish they did. For now, we manage with the European games, until ESPN enforce their “rights” and their call sign down both sides of a wide screen TV (4:3 in 2010 – how quaint!).
What then for SBS, cycling surely is an even smaller niche?
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I still believe that SBS has a place – I just think that the execs need to be more visionary. Picking up quirky, popular shows overlooked by the networks, straight from the US or UK (which I think is key), from the first season, in a reasonable, regular timeslot, is the best way to attract a broad audience. As Tim said, it seems to be in a downward spiral (no ratings, no advertising, no money) but I think that, if they lift their game, SBS can exploit its niche market and garner a loyal following.
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Hey Pageview Generator, I wasn’t aware of the rule that if you watched SBS you weren’t allowed to watch 7/9/10.
The point is that there is duplication of audience between all the stations. The ‘solus’ channel viewer (“I only ever watch the ABC”) is very small in this fragmented television environment. For example, last week SBS reached 47.6% of the metro audience, while 7/9/10 combined reached 87.5%. If we add the unique SBS audience to 7/9/10’s audience, the combined reach increases to 88.4%. This means that just 0.9% of SBS’ 47.6% reach audience did NOT watch ANY 7/9/10 that week, whereas the other 46.7% watched SOME of 7/9/10.
As TV Buyer points out, there are pockets of incremental reach that can be achieved over on SBS – they could be the one extra reach point that gets the buy over the line. Clearly SBS has an important role despite its low share.
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SBS has something others don’t offer i.e. a diverse audience, versus more “white bread” or “skip” audience, which is very important when marketing has to cross cultures onshore and potentially offshore. Good example could be in Asia (online) in future e.g. The World Game/A – League reach for companies or products with diverse target audience, versus AFL?
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“advertisers pay to reach audiences. And that’s something SBS is not achieving.” Um, the fact that they get 4.2% means they do reach an audience. If you know who you want to target and they’re watching an SBS Danish crime drama on Thursday night, then you buy some time with SBS. Size doesn’t matter. Whether they make a decision to purchase what you’re selling does.
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The point of the original article is that SBS had that diverse audience once-upon-a-time but don’t anymore. New technologies and platforms like payTV, satellite TV and IPTV provide the “non-skips” (Andrew’s term, not mine!) their television programming which has slowly but surely eaten away at SBS’s traditional purpose – technologies that didn’t exist thirty years ago when SBS was founded.
Now that we have multiple digital free-to-air channels, SBS is not only losing relevancy, but audience as well – helped in no small part by their increased advertising policy that was tolerated by their their loyal viewers when it began, but infuriated them when it stepped up a few gears and started interrupting programs.
While their advertising base may increase when the occasional sporting circus rolls into town, there simply isn’t enough ad-dollars in the Australian television market to keep them going on a day-to-day basis. We’re just not that big a market.
Had they stayed a pseudo-public broadcaster they may have been able to justify their existence, but now that they are a fully-fledged commercial broadcaster they need to lie in the bed they’ve made.
Their future? Well one way out of the wilderness could be to re-invent themselves as Australia’s answer to HBO – quality, innovative productions or formats that could be sold to the world. Where the money comes from I’m not sure – they’d have to start small, aim high and be smart about it.
The comedy Wilfred has been picked up in the States – maybe that’s a starting point?
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@Adam Paull
“Well one way out of the wilderness could be to re-invent themselves as Australia’s answer to HBO – quality, innovative productions or formats that could be sold to the world”
HBO have the biggest production budgets in the industry. it costs serious money to make shows that good, and I wish they could, but SBS have no hope of competing there.
I think the key for them is to buy good value, high-quality shows from overseas (mainly USA and UK), put together a well thought out weeklong schedule around a well-defined target audience, and market effectively to them. So, basically, what they already try to do, but just do it much much better
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Yes, all true Jonathon – but what did HBO start with?
HBO’s foundation was innovation which doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive. Their success has enabled their production budgets to grow, and while I don’t expect SBS to ever be as big as HBO, they can at least use them as inspiration in the same way the ABC does with the BBC.
The option of buying overseas productions for Australian broadcasters will become limited in the not too distant future as foreign content producers cut-out the middle man and start offering their programs direct to a global audience through IPTV platforms.
That day is coming, and all Australian broadcasters, not just SBS, need to start planning for it.
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@Adam Paull
HBO (who I work for) are owned by one of the biggest media companies in the world and are supported by cable subs. From the beginning they had a much bigger resource to allow them to take big programming punts, which SBS simply couldn’t. bit like suggesting every consumer electronics firm should be more like Apple(!) – although i take your point re: ABC and BBC, it serves as inspiration for them. I think the real lesson for SBS is how HBO went about defining a content and audience strategy, rather than the size of their productions. So we agree!
I also agree IPTV is a risk for SBS – all broadcasters – but it’ll be some time before revenues can match what FTA broadcasters can pay. SBS does need its own content (Wilfred is great), but I think best place to start that journey is still going to be buying from USA/UK, growing loyal audience, then making quality programming for them
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Tim, You like to take snapshots across short periods of time to make an impact.
Prove that the audiences are in decline as a trend rather than comparing on a night when Masterchef Junior is on.
This sort of discussion winds me up a bit.
Base it on more days and weeks and more data and then lets have a robust discussion. You sent a link on one Sunday night of viewing.
COME ON!
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@Jonathan
I’m thinking more along the lines of attitude rather than income/audience – maybe HBO was the wrong example, (maybe Showtime?) but there is a opening for an Australian broadcaster to step up to the plate and make Australian programs and formats that the world would like to see. Turning SBS into a source of innovative, compelling and interesting television – rather than just a copy of the existing commercial broadcasters (which has failed) – is a way forward.
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SBS programming after 5PM is now almost 100% English. This is radically different from its schedule for most of its existence and it is disgraceful. It was NOT set up to broadcast all its evening programs in English, it was set up to TRULY reflect multicultural Australia.
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TV is dead. The internet is king.
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Why is SBS in the commercial market anyway? If I was a mechanic and a government funded mechanic started competing with me, I would close up straight away. The ‘intelligent’ audience of SBS are unlikely to be single medium consumers. If SBS was not in the market where would their revenue go? Websites with intelligent discourse, magazines, AFR etc? Any number of businesses suffer (or don’t even start) because the government choose to supplement their funding of SBS with a little chunk from the revenue of each of their competitors (and would-be competitors). Wouldn’t we all love a subsidy to support our competing businesses! How competitive would SBS be in the market if they had to charge the real cost of producing and transmitting their network?
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In the future, SBS broadcast ‘Two and a Half Men’, 26 hours a day.
It was a decision made by the network to change a standard day from 24 hours, to 26 hours, so that they could squeeze in more penis jokes.
Amazingly – their ratings exploded through the stratosphere and all the other networks, who only show ‘Two and a Half Me’ 18 hours a day (the minimum quota as set by the government), have all slumped to all-time lows.
I guess what I’m trying to say is…..
The future looks promising.
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May be SBS should change Agency. After all Sony did, probably for similar reasons (when quizzed on why they changed they stated it was because it took the last contagious)
Sony Australia has appointed
Contagious Communications to
create and manage a long-term
consumer brand advocate team.
The agency used psychographic
techniques to identify Sony advocates
with social influence. Criteria
such as digital and technology
were also taken into
consideration. The members of
the advocate team, branded Sony
X, have been invited to help shape
the future of Sony�s brands and
will be involved in regular advocacy
initiatives across the group
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Intelligent, 4%, brain dead 96%, what’s going on here? Pathetic.
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I watch One HD when there is something on that I like. I always watch SBS News and I religiously watched the Hitler doco’s – am I disturbed?
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