The national public broadcaster had its start in 1975, initially as three-month experiment to provide information on Medibank, the new national health care scheme, to Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds.
It operated out of Sydney via 2EA in seven foreign languages; and in Melbourne via 3EA in eight languages other than English.
Today, SBS broadcasts in 63 languages across radio, podcasting, online and social media.
From 2012, SBS also became home to N-I-T-V [[National Indigenous Television]] - a channel made by, for and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Managing Director of SBS James Taylor says there is a lot to celebrate.
"We've got the highest volumes of multilingual content than ever before in our history. And in 60 languages. We're also being acknowledged across a number of other fronts. We've got the Australian streaming platform through SBS On Demand, and we are the podcaster of the year, three years in a row. These are all things to really be celebrated. We're a public good, we are in part funded by the public, and it's really important for us to be delivering more and more value each year to Australians."
