SBS (Australian TV channel)

SBS began test transmissions in April 1979 as SBS Ethnic Television when it showed various foreign language programs on ABV-2 Melbourne and ABN-2 Sydney on Sunday mornings. Full-time transmission began at 6.30 pm on 24 October 1980 (United Nations Day) as Channel 0/28. At the time, SBS was broadcasting on UHF Channel 28 and VHF Channel 0. Bruce Gyngell, who introduced television to Australia back in 1956, was given the task of introducing the first batch of programs on the new station. The first program shown was a documentary on multiculturalism entitled Who Are We? which was hosted, produced and directed by well-known Australian journalist Peter Luck.

When transmission began for the night, the opening announcement would be as follows with "Fanfare for the Common Man" by Aaron Copland playing in the background:

"Welcome to Channel 0/28 Multicultural Television, Sydney and Melbourne. A section of the Special Broadcasting Service, transmitting on VHF Channel 0 with a vision carrier frequency of 46.25MHz and on UHF Channel 28 with a vision carrier frequency of 527.25MHz. As well as from the Hyatt Kingsgate Tower in Kings Cross, Sydney, on UHF Channel 54 with a vision carrier frequency of 737.25MHz."[2]

On 14 October 1983, the service expanded into Canberra on UHF28, Cooma and Goulburn on UHF58 and at the same time changed its name to Network 0–28. Its new slogan was the long-running "Bringing the World Back Home".

On 18 February 1985, the station changed its name to SBS and began daytime transmissions. In June, SBS expanded to Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle, Wollongong and the Gold Coast. On 5 January 1986 SBS ceased broadcasting on the VHF0 frequency. Although many Australians at the time did not have UHF antennas, SBS's VHF license had already been extended by a year at this stage and not all antennas had worked well with the low-frequency Channel 0 either.[3] Following this, on 16 March 1986, SBS commenced transmission in Perth, Mount Gambier, Loxton-Renmark, Port Pirie, Broken Hill, Toowoomba, Townsville, Bendigo, Ballarat, Traralgon and Hobart. Darwin was the last capital city to receive the channel, with a local signal launched on 20 May 1994. Other cities that have launched the channel on, between and beyond those days included Maryborough/Wide Bay–Burnett, Rockhampton, Mackay, Katherine, Cairns, Bunbury, Albany, Kalgoorlie, Esperance, Geraldton, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Mount Isa, Orange, Griffith, Mildura, Swan Hill, Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga, Coffs Harbour, Lismore, Tamworth and Taree. Shepparton was the last city to launch SBS in the late 1990s.

Although SBS Television commenced transmissions as a non-commercial television network, in 1991 it began accepting and broadcasting television advertisements (a controversial move at the time). These were shown between programs, rather than having them interrupt programs.

In 2001, digital terrestrial television was introduced with transmissions available to most of SBS Television's coverage area on 1 January 2001, this was soon followed by the gradual introduction of widescreen programming.[4]

The hosts of The Movie Show, David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz, moved to the ABC in April 2004 to host a new program called At the Movies.[5] The Movie Show continued with four new hosts, which included Megan Spencer, Jaimie Leonarder, Fenella Kernebone and Marc Fennell. The final episode of The Movie Show aired in June 2006, after the show was axed. The same month, SBS announced it would start showing advertisements during programs, unlike the previous practice in which advertisements were only shown in between programs.[6] In 2007, The Movie Show returned with a new interactive ten-minute format, presented by Lisa Hensley and Michael Adams.

On 1 June 2009, SBS TV was renamed SBS One to coincide with the launch of its new sister channel SBS Two, which would carry programming geared towards younger audiences.

As of 10 December 2013, SBS ceased analogue television broadcasts and is now only available through digital TV or digital set-top box.

On 27 March 2014, SBS and SBS Viceland ended broadcasting Weatherwatch Overnight, an overnight filler program providing national and international weather information with live video feeds of various cities around the world provided by EarthTV, SBS and SBS Viceland is now broadcast 24 hours a day 7 days a week. On 4 July 2015, SBS ONE changed its name back to SBS TV.[7]

SBS launched a new channel focusing on both local and international food programming on 17 November 2015. The channel, called SBS Food (formerly Food Network due to the partnership with Discovery Inc.[8]), is available on free to air channel 33.[9]

On 15 November 2016, SBS rebranded their sister station SBS 2 to SBS Viceland with content from US-Canadian broadcaster Vice Media after signing a deal with Vice Media on 23 June 2016.[10][11]

On 1 July 2019, SBS World Movies started transmission on Channel 32, replacing the Standard Definition broadcast of Viceland, as Viceland moved to Channel 31 in HD, World Movies became the third multichannel, alongside SBS, Viceland and SBS Food.

On 23 May 2022, SBS has launched their own local news in both Arabic and Mandarin on SBS On Demand as they unveiled their fourth multichannel SBS WorldWatch, which would have all the previously aired non-English news bulletins from the World Watch programming block aired alongside. WorldWatch is available on free to air channel 35.[12]

Leading up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, SBS, spent $20 million in order to acquire the exclusive rights to broadcast the competition.[13]

SBS has a range of news and current affairs programming, including its nightly, national, news service SBS World News, investigative programme Dateline, discussion forum Insight, indigenous affairs program Living Black, in addition to its morning & afternoon World Watch timeslot, featuring bulletins in languages other than English. Until early 2007, Toyota World Sport was shown on weeknights until it was axed to accommodate the relaunched, one-hour World News Australia (which is now SBS World News) and World Watch.

It also broadcasts foreign language news on its second digital channel SBS Viceland, sometimes it provides additional information, highlights, and statistics for programmes shown on SBS, such as the FIFA World Cup, The Ashes, Olympic Games, and the Australian Football League Grand Final.

SBS, along with its sister channel Viceland, are still airing English news bulletins from international news channels under the current World Watch block following the launch of SBS WorldWatch multilingual channel.[12]

SBS Sport currently holds the broadcast rights to a range of sports, which are broadcast on SBS, SBS Viceland and SBS On Demand. They have held the rights to many sporting events over the years, which have included the Tour de France, the World Superbikes, the World Rally Championship, The Ashes, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup, FIFA World Cup (every tournament since 1986; shared 2002 tournament with the Nine Network, 2018 with Optus Sport), FIFA Confederations Cup, the FA Cup, the UEFA European Football Championship, the 2004 Summer Olympics, the American National Football League's Super Bowl and the English Premier League. SBS has also produced and broadcast a range of sport related programming including The World Game and the UEFA Champions League Magazine.

The telecast of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing was shared by both the Seven Network and SBS, with the Seven Network holding exclusive Australian free-to-air, pay television, online and mobile telephony broadcast rights. SBS provided complementary coverage and focused on long-form events such as football, road bicycle racing, volleyball, and table tennis. In contrast, Seven broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies and mainstream sports including swimming, athletics, rowing, cycling and gymnastics.

SBS HD Logo

The SBS HD multichannel was launched on 14 December 2006. It broadcasts identical programming to SBS, but in 1080i HD via Freeview and Optus D1.

On 8 April 2017, alongside the launch of SBS Viceland HD, SBS HD was upgraded to an MPEG-4 format, replacing the standard MPEG-2 format it had used since its inception.[22]

SBS On Demand is a video on demand and catch up TV service run by the Special Broadcasting Service. The service became available on 1 September 2011.

SBS On Demand is available on the web and via apps for mobile devices, smart TVs and set-top boxes.[23]

• 29 April – 22 July 1979: This is SBS, Ethnic Television. (used for SBS TV's test transmissions)
• February – May 1980: A Whole New Look at Television.
• 24 October 1980 – 14 October 1983: Channel 0 – A Whole World of People/Entertainment.
• January 1982: Channel 0/28, Celebrating Australia Week 1982.
• 14 October 1983 – 18 February 1985: Network 0–28 – Bringing the World Back Home.
• 18 February 1985 – 1986: We're SBS – Bringing the World Back Home.
• 1986–1988: Discover the Difference.
• 1989–1996: Bringing the World Back Home.
• 1998–2004: Your world is an amazing place
• 2005–2006: Nobody sees the world like SBS
• 2006–2008: There's more to Summer on SBS.
• 7 May 2008 – 27 October 2011: Six Billion Stories and Counting.
• 28 October 2011 – 13 June 2014: Seven Billion Stories and Counting.
• 14 June 2014 – 3 July 2015: Join In
• 8 February 2019 – present: A World of Difference