Dumbing down SBS

With very few exceptions, one looks at the commercial channels in vain for anything substantial on Africa or Asia or even Europe, apart from Britain. The almighty dollar rules. We get endless amounts of Big Brother nonsense because it is cheap, presumably.

Commercial TV even shows us people having accidents - because people send in their home videos to prove it. Well that’s cheap programming! We saw recently Channel 9 heavily advertising a program in which a well-known footballer confessed to long-term drug use. Not because the station cared about people using drugs, but because it was a ratings winner.

For a distinct Australian culture to continue, we desperately need alternatives to dollar-driven TV based on American ideas and content. And at its best SBS has provided a useful and quality addition to TV broadcasting as we know it in Australia.

However, in the past two or three years a worrying trend has begun. SBS has progressively lost much of its dignity and gravitas. David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz have long abandoned SBS for ABC TV. They have been replaced by a program which looks shoddy and amateurish. Pizza - which once seemed to be a satirical show - now seems to be happily reinforcing stereotypes. SBS looks and sounds like commercial TV, most of the time.

There is an occasional current affairs program on SBS, but nothing ground-breaking. Too often we get pious statements and worthy depiction of one group or another, but nothing that really seizes the imagination.

Announcers like Anton Enus and Mary Kostakidis used to sound authoritative, in a solid half hour of world news. Now we get conversations with key figures, reminders of what was said ten minutes earlier and a presentation that smacks of commercial TV. SBS management is smug and complacent, with little to boast about. The News Hour broadcast nightly on SBS shows us what first-rate US public television can do.

Meanwhile, the most innovative and sparkling shows are appearing elsewhere. Thank God You’re Here on channel 10 is unscripted, consistently entertaining and is deservedly popular. The Chaser’s irreverent fun continues on ABC-TV. There are excellent programs on other channels. Channels 7 and 9 give occasional glimpses of solid drama, including Sea Patrol.

Where are the fresh and innovative shows on SBS? Why don’t we have more shows like Remote Area Nurse? SBS has a large enough budget, and potential support from many sectors of the community. But it will fritter this away if it is seduced by commercial dollars. Where is the vision? Where are the authentic voices of Africans, the Chinese or Latino-Australians? Where are the programs teaching people how to speak English and Spanish and Mandarin?

Ignorance is dangerous. We recently saw a ludicrous scene in which a Miss Teen America candidate attempted to describe America’s role in the world. She was responding to news that one fifth of Americans, apparently, cannot find the USA on a world map. We find this hilarious; although I was amazed to hear that four-fifths of Americans could find the USA on a world map. But without a diverse and sometimes confronting media, our children will grow up just as ignorant. They will believe what they read on Wikipedia. They will buy American values and ideas. They will never become educated people.

We now cannot watch anything on SBS without gritting our teeth in anticipation of strident voices from carpet warehouses and discount stores. Why were these begun? Where is the evidence that they help produce quality programs?

The ferocity and sheer number of these ads demean SBS and pulls it down to commercial levels. He who pays the piper calls the tune: as the commercial dollars roll in, so will pressure. How can SBS report impartially on the Australian political scene when it is tied to commercial needs?

As George Orwell suggested in his novel 1984, the modern genius is to state a noble intention while practising the opposite. For instance, simply announce that we need to go to war in order to preserve peace. Thus SBS’ Corporate Plan says “We are a pioneering broadcaster ... independent from external pressures to conform or favour (sic) … we are courageous in what we do”.