SBS Television is caught between a rock and a hard place, according to Dr Chris Lawe Davies, from the University of Queensland.
'In short, I argue SBS cannot meet its charter obligations while at the same time performing as a commercial broadcaster,' Dr Lawe Davies said.
A senior lecturer in the Journalism Department, he studied the Special Broadcasting Service over about five years for his PhD thesis.
This focused on the practicalities of running a public service broadcaster which was also required partly to fund itself through the commercial sector.
Dr Lawe Davies said the contradictions and difficulties which beset SBS stemmed largely from the 'flawed brief' given the broadcaster by various governments.
'When SBS was incorporated in 1991 it was for the first time allowed to earn revenue from advertising. This was seen as the only means of expanding the SBS budget without blowing out government appropriations to broadcasting,' he said.
'While this 'commercial measure' was understandable, it nevertheless has thrown a quality public service broadcaster into a difficult contradiction - charter versus commercial performance, appealing to special interests versus appealing to a commercial median of all interests.'
He said governments spent massive amounts on public service broadcasting - on the ABC, SBS and, to some extent, the community broadcasting sector. 'So it's understandable governments are seeking means of capping the cash outflows.'
His research covered earlier government initiatives to rein in spending, including the proposed merger of SBS with ABC.
Certain cost savings were expected to flow from such a move but it never got off the ground largely because of 'massive opposition' from ethnic communities.
Dr Lawe Davies said SBS radio started in 1975 and the television channel five years later, both catering to the diverse ethnic audience which had grown up throughout Australia as a result of post-war immigration.
Prominent in the community, besides the British, were Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, Romanians and other old European nationalities.
SBS was the multi-cultural broadcaster to this audience: many programs were in their native languages while those in English were about their cultures. The ethnic community was deeply concerned about such a service being diluted or lost altogether if SBS merged with the ABC.
Dr Lawe Davies said the incorporation of SBS seven years ago was partly designed to reassure ethnic groups - which had come to be regarded as a significant political force - that the merger debate was finished.
'But interestingly, while the merger plans of the 1980s failed because those same community groups protested hotly, wanting their own distinct SBS, now many community leaders in the late 1990s say they couldn't care less. SBS is no longer theirs.
'Arguably the biggest single reason SBS has moved away from its constituency has come through allowing the network to advertise - and it was this policy which replaced the merger proposal,' Dr Lawe Davies said.
He said in the long term one of the inevitable outcomes of allowing SBS to advertise will be the amount of public funding diminishing by roughly the amount of income generated. In other words, the bottom line will hardly change.
With the broadcaster still short of funds, it has to rely on imported programs from overseas which often are extremely cheap mainly because nobody else wants to screen them.
Dr Lawe Davies said SBS should be mostly about local content - talking to local migrants about local, not imported, heritage - and he detects things are improving marginally in this direction.
However, the basic dilemma is how to generate more revenue through more advertising when programs are specifically targeted to appeal to narrow ethnic interests.
'Advertisers and advertising agencies are the problem here. They cannot think of targeted television. It happens in the print media but is a no-no within the culture of commercial television,' Dr Lawe Davies said.
He said SBS had an average audience share of 3 - 3.5 percent over an evening but more than 40 percent of television viewers tuned in at least once each week.
However, this viewing pattern did not attract advertisers who wanted not just a big audience but also regular watchers who could be bombarded with the same message over and over again.
Dr Lawe Davies said this attitude had to change and the commercial potential of a multi-national market place needed to be explored. At the same time the government had to look at what it wanted from SBS and what it was prepared to pay.
'Until then SBS will continue limping along, always needing a top-up of funding from the public purse although gradually shifting on to a more commercial footing,' he said.
For further information, contact Dr Chris Lawe Davies (telephone 3365 3041).
