SBS Showcase
Tuesday 16 June 2009
It is a pleasure to be here this evening.
SBS is one of Australia’s most valued public institutions.
For almost three decades, SBS Television has, in the words of its original slogan, "brought the world back home" to Australian audiences.
With "six billion stories and counting" out there to tell, SBS continues to keep us connected with stories from the wider world.
SBS provides viewers with the kind of culturally diverse and stimulating programming that cannot be found on any other Australian television network.
Australia’s multicultural national broadcaster has proven itself over many years to be a dynamic content producer and communicator of Australia’s cultural diversity.
As Steve [Knappman, producer of East West 101] has just pointed out, the importance of telling Australian stories can’t be overstated.
In an increasingly globalised world, our stories are central to our national culture.
SBS excels at bringing the stories of the real, multicultural Australia to our screens, and the new series of East West 101 promises to continue this tradition.
As most of you know, the Government announced significant new funding in this year’s budget to support local content production at SBS.
While I know some of you here were hoping for more, in an extremely tight fiscal environment, I’m delighted we were able to find the money to support more multicultural programming.
This funding will enable SBS to continue to commission and broadcast ground-breaking drama series such as East West 101 and The Circuit.
It will also support the production of one-off programs, like the recent tele-movie, Saved, which dramatised the plight of asylum seekers in Australia.
It will enable SBS to commission and screen more productions like the outstanding documentary series, First Australians, which showed us so much about our nation’s history and the relationship between Indigenous and settler Australians.
In fact, I believe a series examining the history of immigration and multiculturalism in Australia will be the next major documentary production commissioned by SBS.
This is the kind of programming for which SBS was created.
It has been the tool used by SBS to deepen the understanding of multiculturalism in Australia by portraying and celebrating cultural diversity on our television screens.
It’s the kind of programming in which SBS has led the world for almost thirty years, and it remains at the core of the organisation.
But today, new digital technologies are changing the fundamentals of broadcasting and media.
Multi-channel digital television and high-speed broadband are providing audiences with vastly increased choices of media content from around the world.
As a result, SBS faces many challenges in an increasingly globalised and multi-platform media environment.
The launch earlier this month of SBS Two, a discrete digital channel, demonstrates once again how SBS has responded creatively to the changing media environment.
The new channel enhances multicultural and multilingual offerings, and will give SBS the space to program more ground-breaking Australian and international content.
Crucially, this additional channel will enable SBS to bring its viewers important international sporting events, such as the upcoming Tour De France live and in full, without interrupting Ashes cricket coverage on SBS One.
It will also help SBS provide full coverage of the 2010 World Cup.
It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that SBS, which has been so important to the cultural development of Australia, continues to be well-placed to meet the ongoing challenges and opportunities that exist in the digital space.
The Rudd Government has made clear its intention to ensure the strength and independence of SBS, and to position it to take on future challenges and embrace emerging opportunities.
An important step in this process was the public review of both our national broadcasters undertaken late last year.
We received more than 2,400 submissions to that review, almost 1,000 of which evinced strong support for the core SBS function of providing multilingual and multicultural programming.
This was resounding proof of the passion for multicultural public broadcasting held by the Australian people.
The submissions put to the review will help shape our national broadcasters over the next decade.
They will help us to ensure that SBS remains Australia’s truly Special Broadcasting Service and continues to relate the stories unfolding around the world as we enter the digital era.
Thank you.
