SBS is more valuable dead than alive.Sheehan says the government could make a fortune selling the digital spectrem out from under SBS. He encourages readers to switch to Murdoch's FOXtel for their news.
The Special Broadcasting Service Act should be repealed, the corporation dismantled and sold and its valuable broadcasting spectrum auctioned off. SBS has outlived its charter, and the charter has always been of dubious social utility. (I quote, in part: "As far as practicable, inform, educate and entertain Australians in their preferred languages.")
Australia has moved on.
Let's ignore for a moment the fact that you have to PAY MURDOCH to get Foxtel, whereas SBS was always supposed to be a freely-available taxpayer-funded (advertisement free) public service.
The fact is that SBS has been the conscience of Australia television journalism for the past ten years, while the ABC has been relentlessly shackled. That's what Kostakidis is really fighting for, and SBS news viewers know it damn well.
Last night I found my 65-year-old mum sitting in front of a dark TV screen.
"I'm boycotting the World News," she explained.
"What's the point, unless some market researcher rings you to ask about it?"
"Well, it doesn't matter. I'm just so upset."
Sheehan quotes poor viewer ratings and says even the term "ethnic" is now "laughably outdated". You can thank John Howard and his racist nazis for that, Paul. I remember when Australia was proud to be a multicultural society, a melting pot for East and West, a global frontier for the ideals of racial harmony. It seems such a long time ago.
