After 30 years of hard-hitting international reportage, SBS’s Dateline program is taking a radical new direction into lighter, more accessible fare, SBS managing director Michael Ebeid has confirmed.
“I do think that Dateline brought some really important stories from around the world for us and there is a lot going on in the world,” Ebeid told Guardian Australia at an SBS programming launch on Friday.
“But we do need to make the program a little bit lighter and that’s part of the direction that it will be going. Serious news and current affairs at 9.30pm at night is always difficult.”
Ebeid denied that the Coalition’s budget cuts were behind any changes to the format. The ABC is also expected to trim its current affairs programming next year, including Lateline, 7.30 and Foreign Correspondent.
Veteran Dateline executive producer Peter Charley quit after seven years at the helm of the award-winning program after management revealed the show was going to be overhauled next year.
Sources said about $1m had already been taken out of the show’s budget, and staff had been put on notice their contracts might not be renewed.
Charley, who was the executive producer of ABC’s Lateline for seven years before joining SBS, has been replaced by Bernadine Lim, a producer with an entertainment background from TV3 in New Zealand.
Since 1984 Dateline has pioneered the low-cost alternative to camera crews – video journalists – winning countless awards along the way, including the Gold Walkley for Mark Davis and 18 Walkley awards.
Davis won the Gold Walkley in 2000 for his report on the funding of pro-Indonesian militias in East Timor.
Now hosted by Anjali Rao, Dateline has been fronted by some of the biggest names in current affairs journalism: George Negus, Jana Wendt, Yalda Hakim and Helen Vatsikopoulos.
“We are returning Dateline with a new format, a new line up of talent and will have a completely different feel and energy in the sort of stories that it is doing,” Ebeid said.
“The budget is going to be the same for Dateline. We are just refreshing it, doing new things with it and unfortunately not everyone likes change.”
“The format is still being decided. It is way too early and we have more great ideas with what we are going to do with Dateline but we haven’t resolved them yet.”
