Statement from SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid on funding cuts
Wednesday 19 November, 2014
SBS is already an extremely lean organisation and the funding cut of $53.7 million over five years announced by the Australian Government today, whilst anticipated, is sizeable and will naturally be felt by our organisation.
The Government will provide $287 million to SBS in 2014-15 which represents 75 per cent of our organisation’s total funding, with 25 per cent generated from our own commercial revenues. SBS operates on one fifth of the average budget of the other free-to-air broadcasters.
National efforts to unify Australia’s diverse communities go directly to the reason SBS was established, and it is at a time when our social cohesion is being tested, that having a multicultural broadcaster is more important than ever.
SBS’s dedicated role to reflect the changing face of our nation is our point of difference in the Australian media. It is SBS’s unique insights and links to multicultural communities that means we are perfectly positioned to help shape a cohesive multicultural future, and to explore and celebrate what it means to be Australian today.
Through the ABC and SBS Efficiency Study, the SBS Board and I have sought to demonstrate SBS is lean and agile, with creative employees that are, by necessity, highly-skilled at delivering on our Charter obligations, on very tight budgets.
Ordinarily, SBS is funded within a triennial model and this cut has come in the middle of that cycle which is disappointing, as our preferred outcome would have been to retain the stability the triennial model provides, given our long-term supplier agreements.
I note Minister Turnbull’s announcement of his intention to introduce legislation to Parliament in 2015 to amend the SBS Act 1991 which would enable SBS to use its current 120 minutes per day of advertising differently, by allowing it to average the minutes to a maximum of 10 minutes per hour instead of five minutes per hour.
As the Government has identified public broadcasting as an area it will cut funding, should this legislative proposal pass Parliament, it could allow SBS to earn back in the order of $20-30 million of the Government’s funding cuts over five years through additional advertising revenue.
In an environment where public broadcasting is under pressure and SBS is operating in a highly competitive media market, the ability to generate more of our own revenue helps us to secure the future sustainability of the organisation, without compromising our content.
The Charter is at the heart of our organisation and the content we commission. I am confident and committed that should this legislation pass Parliament, SBS would only implement additional advertising in programs and timeslots where the advertising return could genuinely aid our ability to invest in more Australian content.
SBS continuously and aggressively pursues efficiencies to reinvest in underfunded activities such as digital services and local Australian content. To that end, as part of our ongoing program identifying efficiencies, we were already and are, implementing back-of-house measures which will largely help to absorb this funding cut, net of additional revenues.
Some of these measures include transmission and distribution efficiencies, work flow and operational initiatives, a freeze on executive salaries and a number of other smaller efficiency initiatives we will be exploring through our internal planning processes.
SBS’s focus and my personal commitment as Managing Director, has and continues to be on securing funding to put into more Australian content for our audiences and to meet our Charter.
SBS continues to ensure a focus on being well-prepared to use our modest resources to invest in initiatives that best equip us to maximise our contributions to the Australian community.
ENDS