The ABC’s managing director, Mark Scott, has called into question the need for a second public broadcaster, saying SBS provides less distinctive content and foreign language programming than it once did and has evolved into a general interest channel.
Appearing before the Senate estimates communications committee for the last time in his 10 years as ABC chief, Scott seized the opportunity to say he believed it was “worth considering” whether Australia still needed two public broadcasters. But he said it was a matter for the government.
“I do think, in a way, SBS was created well before digital television, well before digital TV,” Scott said. “There would be ways of thinking … it’s a matter worthy of consideration down the track.”
He said the arrival of multiple channels meant that once rare content was now widely available, making SBS less relevant. “I think that the core tenets of SBS when it was established – to provide multicultural broadcasting – I suspect that the SBS of today is more general interest broadcasting. The distinction between the two broadcasters is not as distinct as it once was.”
The question arose because Scott was asked about the ABC’s decision to program Foreign Correspondent at the same time as SBS’s Dateline, as revealed by Guardian Australia. The popular international current affairs show is moving from its primetime spot of 8pm on a Tuesday night to the less populated 9.30pm slot for the 2016 schedule – and SBS is furious.
Scott said the two public broadcasters did not sit down and program together and occasionally programs clashed. He encouraged viewers who wanted to watch both shows to use catch-up TV platforms.
Frustrated about Dateline and Foreign Correspondent clashing, the Liberal senator Chris Back asked: “It begs the question really, from the viewpoint of the consuming public, why do we want the two public broadcasters?”
Scott said: “Over the years SBS has competed against us, including against new Australian programming. We program separately to the way that they program.”
He said while there was an obligation in the ABC charter to take account of what was happening elsewhere in the media sector, the ABC had the right to program as it pleased and Foreign Correspondent was part of a factual programming slot on Tuesdays.
But he left open the question of rethinking the later time slot for the show, saying “nothing is locked in stone”.
A spokeswoman for SBS responded to Scott’s remarks at estimates, saying its multi-lingual content had never been higher.
“SBS’s sole focus is on continuing to provide unique services to multicultural Australia at a time when inspiring a greater understanding of the value of multiculturalism has never been more important,” she said.
“Our audiences are up 11% and we are using digital technology in a way that no other broadcaster can to reach multicultural communities, with more multilingual content that at any time in our history across all platforms – TV, radio, online and via digital services.”
Senators Sam Dastyari and Stephen Conroy both thanked Scott for his stewardship of the ABC over two terms, praising him for “pushing the digital transformation” of the broadcaster.
