SBS has started the unenviable task of finding a replacement for departing managing director Michael Ebeid, who announced his resignation earlier this month. Ebeid spent seven years in the role after a surprise appointment from his previous role as a corporate strategist at the ABC.
Optus’ World Cup disaster was SBS’ gain this year, but the change comes at a difficult time for the network. Commercial networks are baying for changes to the SBS charter in submissions to the competitive neutrality inquiry. They want SBS On Demand (the online catch-up service), advertising share, and television content rules to be overhauled by rewriting the charter.
And the job isn’t made any easier by the number of stakeholders with competing interests in the broadcaster. We asked some of those who know SBS best what would be one criterion they would like from the new managing director.
Steve Aujard – Save Our SBS president
It’s essential to recognise the large body of evidence from different studies which repeatedly show in-program advertising has conflicted SBS away from its charter obligations, so if the new MD is incapable of at least returning SBS to the pre-2006 model, where ads were between programs only — and not in them — then we don’t want that person. No ads would be ideal, but that’s a big ask.
It is very important SBS find someone with a strong public broadcasting ethos — who puts viewers before advertisers — and is committed to SBS scheduling niche and diverse multicultural and multilingual content, especially in primetime, so it looks noticeably different from the ABC and commercial media.
A good MD will listen to, and act on, advice from key stakeholders like Save Our SBS.
Denise Eriksen – Monash University Documentaries producer, Australian International Documentary Conference co-chair, The New Daily TV writer
S/he needs to be a clone of Michael Ebeid, and ensure the continuing survival of Australia’s most exciting and innovative public and commercial broadcaster. Michael Ebeid has played a skilful political game, settled on a clear interpretation of SBS’ charter and enabled his team to deliver on that vision.
His successor has a solid platform to build on. SBS On Demand is a market leader and provides a window on the world with its international, in-language content. With strong nurturing, the television, radio and news platforms will continue to grow.
The key criterion for the new leader? Don’t stuff it up. It’s not broken. Don’t “fix” it.
Matthew Deaner – Screen Producers Australia CEO
SBS has a strong tradition in telling distinctive, diverse stories that many other broadcasters won’t or can’t tell. Most recently under Michael Ebeid, this tradition — which has been mostly in factual television — has translated into high-quality Australian drama and children’s television. Dramas such as Safe Harbour and Indigenous children’s television such as Little J and Big Cuz bring parts of Australia to the screen that have been neglected by others.
I would hope an incoming managing director will continue to see value in these stories and invest further in this successful storytelling with the independent production sector.
Andrew Jakubowicz – University of Technology Sydney sociology professor, former SBS board member
Multiculturalism in Australia is under major threat, so Ebeid’s replacement will need to be aware of the range and nuances of the factors that help or hinder social cohesion in multicultural Australia, while being committed to its advancement. She will need to be adventurous and brave, as she will face an imminent attack from the commercial forces of News Corp and Fairfax, the commercial channels, cable and FT, as well as the threatened ABC.
This attack from competitors in media will be exacerbated by the attack from opponents of multiculturalism (including elements of News Corp). The new CEO will need to understand the way in which public opinion is shaped, and the way in which complex and multiple identities can be best tended.
What would you like to see out of the new managing director? Let us know at [email protected].
5 thoughts on “Media roundtable: what do we want from the new SBS managing director?”
Lesley Gruit
July 31, 2018 at 4:23 pmWhoever it is, they need to axe any more broadcasting of the fucking Great British Railway Journeys.
AR
July 31, 2018 at 6:02 pmThe ABC/SBS should be merged as they serve the same audience – those with higher than room temperature IQ – but ditch the ads.
paddy
July 31, 2018 at 6:43 pmMuch as I wish that all (or even any) of the above contributors will be happy with this Govt’s choice for Michael Ebeid’s replacement, past history shows they’ll no doubt appoint someone with specific instructions to wreck the joint. (Turnbull and NBN comes to mind.)
Not feeling very hopeful at all. 🙁
Len Heggarty
July 31, 2018 at 10:50 pmThe SBS was once part of the ABC and the SBS manager is leaving.
Let me see, ABC, and let’s kick the can down the road. May I write about the Government push against the other letters, just because I am alpha … I bet?
Give me a letter “P” because politics with a capital P is the driver of the Political Coalition Government down the road and over the middle line to collide with the omnibus of the ABC?
Politics is the reason for the crash and economics is the excuse for the crash into the ABC to try and dismember it as the ABC Board and its members sack and get rid of staff because of the Funding Cuts of the Government Coalition. And my, what a collision is happening, As Joh would say “the left guard, the right guard, the mud guard” are all coming apart with much mud thrown and dirt being dug in parliament..
The days of the ABC costing eight cents a day are long gone as they were the days before SBS started up, before advertising was granted on SBS. Then, SBS suddenly burst out of the ABC mould as a commercial station chasing ads and then SBS became a weird bird flying on its own, flapping its right wing as a lot of migrants who came here could not find work, so those migrants started up their own business. The SBS became right with advertising, the word “right” being the right word as it was found that it is the Labor Party who is sympathetic to migrants and refugees, but as migrants land here and start up their own business they become right wing and vote Liberal.
When they vote Liberal those same, then desperate people fleeing their homeland to save their lives, really kiss the solid land of Australia and therefore you would think they would be grateful to the Labor Party. You would think? Not so, so. In voting, they mainly vote Liberal and they stop Labor from becoming the Government.
Why did not Labor become the Government at the last election? Good question? There has to be a stopper, a block as the most important thing is Health to all of us and the cheapest way is for the Government to pay for your health with Medicare. Without good Health we die, each and all of us die without good health in a land with many of us with cancer, and cancer is increasing so we have to have a very healthy Health system as the backbone of the nation. There now stands a conundrum because many refugees sailed into the Indian Ocean bound for Christmas Island risking their life and many thousands are now dead, their bodies are in Davy Jones’ Locker. They sailed to their death, but in Australia we have a safety net, and Medicare and a good Health system and a Hospital system to save lives.
The Government in attacking the ABC also attack SBS, the media station of migrants who are building Australia by building their own business. So right at this moment through the Senate the vote for the Corporate Tax Cuts is extremely important for the next election for the Liberal Coalition. Employers and the Government see that when migrants start up their own businesses they then align politicly with employers, so they get the jobs that Australians want, and those migrants being business minded vote Liberal.
Bill Shorten had opposed the Corporate Tax Cuts and said he will repeal them if he gained government. That statement by Shorten has now been annexed and axed as Bill Shorten has backflipped after being pressured by the ALP. Both sides of politics are after the migrant vote for the election because they want to take care of business. And Labor wants to take care of business as well as the workers. That is some double act.
Meanwhile the red-haired female Pauline Hanson now also wants to block the Corporate Tax Cuts in the Senate but also has backflipped back. Talk about confusing the electorate? Pauline has history in saying migrants take Australian jobs. She is right, as that is why we want migrants to increase growth. And Labor in its past exploited the migrant intake with 457 Visas. A lot of migrants gained jobs and that is the link with Labor and One Nation as Bill Shorten is a former leader in the Unions. So we have a volatile mixture that is not palatable. It could be a cough mixture in a melting pot all sides wanting votes and the Government squeezes the ABC in funding and the ABC then steps politically back because of staff cuts from delivering quality News. Staff cuts add to the unemployment list and that is political news. News? What is news? News is what someone at some time does not want published. And just who is that someone? The biggest entity personified is the Federal Government. The ABC receives funding from the Government but part of its charter and job is to broadcast the bad news of the Government. Just because the Government gets disgruntled about that does not mean the ABC should stop reporting the news from the Government. All news is bad news.
What the Liberal government is doing in attacking the ABC is attacking what they see as the political left, the Labor Party ideal. Liberals see the news as left-wing. How can it be left-wing as it is not Communist China stuff of communists is it? Back in Menzies day in the Labor Party, Communists were part and parcel of the Labor Party. The ALP is now right wing with rich and wealthy people in it. That is the complaint of the ABC. The ABC Board is NOT made up of typical Labor people. They are intellectuals and wealthy business people and they may be from the Church, so just how can it be left-wing. It is objective, but the Liberals do not like objectiveness. If the ABC is privatised, all objectiveness could be banned in how they broadcast. The Liberals have the three commercials of Channel 9, Channel 7 and Channel 10 and they want to make it four commercial channels with maybe no SBS as that channel would be assimilated back into the ABC. Then we would have four Commercial channels all exactly the same. Wow, then the political right would ideally control the news, just like we swallow cornflakes and toast with morning radio and TV ads.
Just who are Australians is a very complex question to answer. Are we with the USA and president Trump, or are we with Great Britain and the Queen and the monarchy? Are we with China and South-east Asia? Or are we independent and an isolated Australia with New Zealand? We are not one of them, we are all of them. The same image is also with the ABC. That is why different political parties see the ABC as different to what is the real image and therefore to the ruling party, the Government. The ABC according to the Government must be re-drawn and changed to be like the other three channels. Do you want the ABC to be like the ad-infested Channel 9, 7 or 10? Don’t say “I will have fries with that.” The ABC is not a Big Mac from the seat where I sat.
Bref
August 4, 2018 at 9:50 pmTwo things I want.
1. Lee Lin Chin back.
2. Giro d’Italia back.