Special Broadcasting Service



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When the Special Broadcasting Service was first established, it tried to be a radio and TV service for the approximately 25% of Australians who have English as a second language. It contained a variety of factual and fictional programmes from a wide range of countries and in a wide number of languages. There were just two small problems -- 1) no Anglos watched the channel, meaning it bled money, and 2) there was no single minority large enough to provide it a single stable audience, unlike Spanish-language TV in the United States. As a result it diversified its schedule a little, adding quirky programmes from overseas, like anime or cult U.S. programmes.

However, since pay TV has helped to provide TV for non-Anglophones, SBS finally expanded to more popular English-language programmes. Although currently showing hits such as MythBusters and Iron Chef, the network again ran into monetary problems -- and to help increase their budget, they began accepting advertising. Viewers who kept with the network since its inception were worried and upset that it was betraying its roots, while other people weren't watching SBS anyway because they thought it was just filled with Sex and Bloody Soccer.

Whether or not these perceptions are accurate, SBS Radio still runs a foreign-languages-only service and SBS-TV still shows a number of non-English shows (the most popular being Austrian Inspector Rex), news shows from a variety of different countries, and a wide range of documentaries and current-affairs shows. One tradition is to show a Hayao Miyazaki film on Christmas Day at about 8:30 PM, as by this time any older people who think anime is automatically for children will have fallen asleep following Christmas dinner.

Recently, SBS has started to produce more of its own content. East West 101 was an acclaimed drama featuring a Muslim Australian cop, which also aired in Canada, Israel and various other countries. As of the 2010s, documentaries focusing on historical and contemporary issues of Australian immigration, such as Go Back To Where You Came From, have been a new focus. SBS also has a worthy history of supporting unique and subversive comedies that otherwise would be considered too risky or offensive to air. Paul Fenech's Pizza was a subversive '00s low-brow comedy success. Wilfred and Danger 5 are comedies with bizarre premises, but Wilfred was popular enough to inspire a hit US adaption.

SBS broadcasts in more languages than any other broadcaster in the world, with more than 68 languages on radio, more than 60 on television and more than 50 online. This is after being forced to cut down (notably ceasing its Belarusian, Welsh and Gaelic broadcasts) due to budget constraints.

Not to be confused with Eiichiro Oda's Q&A column, or the SBS network in South Korea (Seoul Broadcasting System), which both have the same abbreviations.