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When You Don’t Know Your Own Strengths
By David Ingram

SBS is busy kneecapping one of its most outstanding assets: its world-class subtitling section. David Ingram looks at the managerial bungling behind their move

On its own, the shedding of more than 10 jobs in SBS’s relatively small Subtitling Unit could simply be a sad necessity, a realistic remedy to straitened economic times. SBS has limited funds, is not immune to economic downturns and must adapt to changing demands for subtitling foreign programs.

SBS managing director Shaun Brown gave a Senate Estimates committee on Monday the reasons for what he called “surplus capacity” in Subtitling:

“Firstly, technology has changed and consequently there are more efficient ways of subtitling and there are further technology changes due in SBS. Secondly, we anticipate on SBS2 in particular an increased level of subtitling that comes with the program from overseas. The quality of those subtitles has improved markedly. … Thirdly, because we only carry subtitling in-house for certain languages, the match between those languages that we have capacity for and those language programs that we want to put to air is never going to be perfect.”

SBS currently employs approximately 35 full- and part-time subtitlers and about 15 casuals, already a significant reduction in numbers from its heyday of 60 staff. Subtitlers say they are the last refuge of multiculturalism within an essentially Anglo SBS TV.

Brown told the senators no languages or individuals had then been identified for the axe, although staff report that the previous Wednesday the unit’s manager had started to give individuals a “heads up” which left at least one subtitler in tears and three others in no doubt their jobs were gone, before the sessions were abruptly stopped. Brown and the Community and Public Sector Union’s National President Michael Tull will meet on Friday.

The truth is SBS doesn’t have enough money to do everything it wants. It never has had, though critics argue that its appetites have risen faster than its resources in recent years. Certainly its senior executives chew up a sizeable proportion of its $260-million budget. In 2008-09 (pdf), Brown and his six highest paid senior executives together received more than $2,175,000.

Brown’s explanation to Senate Estimates was hard to argue with, but it is his solutions which are causing alarm within and beyond the Subtitling Unit. They fear this signals the beginning of the end of subtitling within SBS and of all the benefits that go with having what was once unquestionably the best subtitling service in the world.

And many critics see this as yet another example of what one former managing director has called the “failed business model” of the Board under former chairman Carla Zampatti, which is ironic because that board was appointed almost wholly for its business credentials.

As a fashion designer Zampatti should have recognised the need to protect the brand and maintain consumer loyalty. Change is the lifeblood of the fashion industry, but the Zampatti label is admired as much for where it doesn’t go as for where it does. In trying to shift SBS into a space already overcrowded by the big three commercial television networks, she led SBS down a dead end.

And at a time when it was critical for SBS to remember the business it was in — multicultural broadcasting — the board and senior executive were stripped of almost all expertise. At one point, of nine directors only Zampatti herself and Aboriginal businessman Joseph Elu could claim significant non-Anglo backgrounds.

The senior executive headed in the same direction. Although expanded to nine under Brown, only one — the head of radio — was discernibly “ethnic”. On arrival from New Zealand, Brown could recite the values and value of multiculturalism but had little experience of its uniquely Australian manifestation. Many of his executives had less.

But ill-considered “mainstreaming” and a failure to understand the value of SBS’s multicultural brand weren’t the only aspect of the business model the Zampatti board got wrong. The ideology-driven move towards harder-edged commercialism — including ads within programs — not only alienated large, loyal sections of its audiences but it took the board and executive into areas of commerce where they were often ill-equipped.

Perhaps the most glaring example of this has been the board’s love of outsourcing, a fate some think is in store for SBS Subtitling.

Since 1994, SBS had used SBS Independent to fund local production partnerships, to the benefit of viewers, independent producers and the corporation’s bottom line. But under the Zampatti board, outsourcing became an ideological end in itself. Critics said it had become a vehicle for funnelling taxpayers’ dollars into the private sector. By 2006 SBS was out-sourcing most of its television production, excluding news and current affairs, when the board set out to outsource the entire multimillion dollar television playout system.

Deloittes, who do most of SBS’s business consultancy, ran the tender project, named STRAPS 2. Red Bee Media, a British-based former BBC company owned by the Macquarie group, emerged as the cheapest to provide a complete outsourced service. But it would cost approximately $50 million over 10 years, compared to only $27 million to do the work in-house.

Deloittes then provided three “model sensitivity scenarios”, varying some of the key assumptions which closed the gap between the in-house and outsource options, though not enough. Despite modellings which increased in-house costings and decreased the outsource fees by up to 50 per cent, the best scenario they could find still left the outsource option more expensive by $3 million.

However, the board’s Digital Sub-Committee “determined that an outsource option was preferred in principle” and on 6 March 2007 SBS announced it had chosen the outsourced solution by Red Bee. Nowhere did the media release mention the relative costs of the project.

A year later, on 23 February 2008, SBS quietly admitted the deal with Red Bee Media was off. It never publicly explained why.

Back to the present and the cuts to SBS Subtitling, again the outcome of a Deloittes review.

Red Bee Media owns Red Bee Media Australia, encompassing the former Australian Caption Centre and the country’s biggest supplier of captioning services. On 15 May 2010, the same week SBS was preparing subtitlers for redundancy, Red Bee announced (pdf) it was renewing its contract to provide closed-captioning to SBS. Ironically, while Red Bee Media was making capital from its specialist services, SBS was devaluing its own speciality.

And that’s a problem with outsourcing something unique; you can end up handing your expertise to someone else to accumulate and then sell back to you at price till eventually you have nothing left that makes you special.

In the case of SBS subtitling, this could mean outsourcing more work to a company such as Red Bee who, because they don’t currently have a similar language subtitling capacity in Australia, could either hire ex-SBS subtitlers at their cheaper rate or send jobs to their subtitling operations overseas.

As if this wasn’t alarming enough for SBS employees, talk has re-emerged of selling off SBS’s most lucrative asset — its $64-million Sydney headquarters — and moving into an office block. It may just be talk, but with so many functions now outsourced, its cavernous Artarmon studios vacant most days and digital technology allowing news bulletins to be presented from a studio no larger than a suburban lounge room, SBS could either try again to outsource program playout to an aggregator like Red Bee or even use the ABC/WIN TV multimillion dollar Media Hub facilities now being built at Ingleburn in Sydney’s west.

There is, of course, the question of studios in Sydney and Melbourne to produce SBS radio’s annual 15,000 hours of Australian programming, but radio has been rationalised and downsized over several years and has not been the main driver in SBS since the advent of SBS TV in 1980.

The SBS board has argued with some justification that without new money its options are limited. In the run-up to this month’s budget, Brown did the rounds lobbying for more money for multicultural programming. He repeated his pleas at the Senate Estimates hearing. So far those appeals have largely fallen on deaf ears in Canberra, though privately Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is said to be open to increasing SBS funding if he sees real evidence of a return to a more multicultural focus under the new chairman Joseph Skrzynski. Conroy appointed a second director of non-Anglo background last year and will announce another appointment next Friday. If that person has strong multicultural credentials it will assist Szrzynski and send a strong signal that the Zampatti era is over.

It’s also possible Conroy may order another review of SBS before the next triennial funding round in 2012 and he will certainly be watching closely what further progress the new SBS board makes in reining in Brown and his executives to focus on things SBS has traditionally done better than anyone else in the world. The surviving subtitlers will be hoping that includes them.

Source – http://newmatilda.com/2010/05/27/when-you-don039t-know-your-own-strengths

I am not, nor ever have been, employed by SBS.

Update
The Head of Subtitling, Winnie, has resigned and will be leaving at the end of July.

SBS on the slow road to oblivian is a post from: worldwormweb

Best mobile Twitter client:

Winner – Twitterific
Honourable Mention – Tweetdeck

Best mobile phone:

Winner – Apple iPhone
Honourable Mention – Nexus One (This might have won had it been available here in Australia!!)

Best Office Suite:

Winner – Microsoft Office 2007
Honourable Mention 1  – Openoffice.org
Honourable Mention 2 – Google Docs (its just not quite there yet in my opinion)

Best Browser

Winner – Firefox 3.6
Honourable Mention – Safari

Best desktop twitter client

Winner – Tweetdeck
Honourable Mention – Seesmic for Windows

Best social media tool

Winner – Twitter
Honourable Mention – Facebook

Best Online news source

Winner – Google News
Honourable Mention – SMH.com.au

Best Technology news source

Winner – techcrunch.com
Honourable Mention – mashable.com

Best Radio Station

Winner – ABC 702 Sydney
Honourable Mention – triple j

Best Digital only radio station

Winner – ABC Grandstand
Honourable Mention – Radar

TV Channel of the Year – Free to air

Winner – ONE HD
Honourable Mention – SBS

TV Channel of the Year – Pay TV

Winner –Eurosport
Honourable Mention – UKTV

Australian TV show of the Year

Winner – Packed to the Rafters
Honourable Mention – Offsiders

International TV Show of the year

Winner – Top Gear (UK)
Honourable Mention – QI

Best piece of Technology

Winner – Apple iPod Touch
Honourable Mention – Foxtel IQ2

Australian Sports-person of the year

Winner – Mark Webber
Honourable Mention – Casey Stoner

International Sports-person of the year

Winner – Jenson Button
Honourable Mention – Ryan Giggs

Sports team of the year

Winner – Brawn GP
Honourable Mention – Manchester United

Song of the year

Winner – Muse – United States of Eurasia
Honourable Mention – Lily Allen – Not Fair

Wormy Thing of the Year

Winner – Google Reader

I just can’t start my day with out a browse through my subscriptions on Google Reader.

The 1st Official World Worm Web Awards – The Wormy’s is a post from: worldwormweb

Lily Allen – Not Fair Came in at 8
Muse – Resistance – Came in at 35
Lily Allen – 22 – Came in at 60
Eskimo Joe – Foreign Land -  Came in at 65
Muse – United States Of Eurasia - Came in at 84
Arctic Monkeys – Cornerstone
Arctic Monkeys – My Propeller
Eels – Fresh Blood
Eels – That Look You Give That Guy
Yves Klein Blue – Make Up Your Mind

I hope at least one of them make it, but i was a bit rushed doing it and now i’m not so sure about a couple of them.  Follow the countdown here live: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/09/countdown/

UPDATED: 26/01/2010

Hottest 100 – 2009 – My Votes is a post from: worldwormweb

They list the following new and expanded offerings:
Showtime Greats will be dropped in favour of Showtime genre channels covering action, premiere, comedy and drama. With action and comedy appearing in High Definition.  The Movie Network will add Starpics, and the Family Movie Channel (FMC) with Starpics and Movie One going HD.

On the sports front Fox Sports 1 and 2 will be HD, no word on the previously mentioned Eurosport just yet.

Fox8 and W will also go HD, other new Standard Definition channels include Nation Geographic Wild, Lifestyle You, The Style Network, Discovery’s Turbo Max, Kids CC, 13th Street and Sky News Local.

Sci-Fi, Turbo Max and Lifestyle you will get time shifted along with 5 other as yet un-named channels.

The article goes on to claim that Sport and Movies are the focus, however with only the addition of Fox Sports 2 to HD I can’t see how they claim that. Movies and Lifestyle would appear to be the main focus to me.

The channels mentioned in the article only account for 29, though some are just HD versions of current channels, new channels. This leaves 1 yet to be revealed channel. What will it be? Could it be Eurosport?

November seems a reasonable time frame for the launch of the new channels as the new satellite was only launched last Saturday, 22nd August.

Of course Foxtel have refused to comment according to the article , but as the article was published by 25% owner of Foxtel, News Limited, it is either true or a really good smokescreen. The fact it tallies with a survey sent out by Foxtel in late June, it would be a safe bet most if not all of these channels will appear.

You can read the full article here.

News Limited confirm Foxtel plans is a post from: worldwormweb

Chris Ahearn says :“I don’t believe you could or should charge others for simply linking to your content. Appropriate excerpting and referencing are not only acceptable, but encouraged.”

Whilst I can’t disagree that advertising in newspapers does prop it up, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney is mostly ads with very little “journalism”, what they do call news is mostly trash and pandering to the uneducated masses. And the Sydney Morning Herald tries to pass itself off as a more high-brow news source, it too is mostly ads and the same news as in the Daily Telegraph, only more difficult to read on one of Sydney’s unreliable and overcrowded trains or buses.

Both publishers, News Corp and Fairfax, are doing there best to make out that without charging for the news they provide they will go broke, at least we still have the ABC.

You can read the Fairfax view here: www.theage.com.au/national/stop-the-presses-20090808-edmh.html?page=-1

And the News Corp view here: www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25898155-7582,00.html

And the Fairfax view on News Corp’s plan here: www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/not-happy-rupert-readers-say-they-wont-pay-for-online-news-20090807-eco0.html

And for the full article from Reuters: blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/08/04/why-i-believe-in-the-link-economy/

And for what will hopefully continue to be a free online news service visit the ABC : www.abc.net.au/news/

Reuters says linking to news is good is a post from: worldwormweb

#100 – Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out

#99 – TV On The Radio – Wolf Like Me

#98 – Led Zeppelin – Kashmir

#97 – Midnight Oil – Beds Are Burning

#96 – Daft Punk – One More Time

#95 – Stevie Wonder – Superstition

#94 – Modest Mouse – Float On

#93 – Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy

#92 – Bon Iver – Skinny Love

#91 – AC/DC – Back In Black

#90 – Kings Of Leon – Sex on Fire

#89 – Rage Against the Machine – Bulls on Parade

#88 – The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter

#87 – Coldplay – Yellow

#86 – The Beatles – Come Together

#85 – Dandy Warhols – Bohemian Like You

#84 – Bob Marley & The Wailers – No Woman, No Cry

#83 – Placebo – Every You Every Me

#82 – System of a Down – Chop Suey!

#81 – Pulp – Common People

#80 – The Rolling Stones – Paint It Black

#79 – David Bowie – Life On Mars

#78 – Smashing Pumpkins – Today

#77 – Gotye – Hearts A Mess

#76 – The Stone Roses – Fools Gold

#75 – Greenday – Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

#74 – Nirvana – Lithium

#73 – The Clash – London Calling

#72 – The Shins – New Slang

#71 – The Smiths – How Soon Is Now

#70 – The Prodigy – Breathe

#69 – Jeff Buckley – Grace

#68 – Blink 182 – Dammit

#67 – Ben Folds Five – Brick

#66 – Elton John – Tiny Dancer

#65 – Underworld – Born Slippy

#64 – Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun

#63 – AC/DC – Thunderstruck

#62 – Nine Inch Nails – Closer

#61 – Blur – Song 2

#60 – Johnny Cash – Hurt

#59 – Augie March – One Crowded Hour

#58 – Daft Punk – Around The World

#57 – Tool – Forty Six & 2

#56 – Jeff Buckley – Lover You Should Have Come Over

#55 – Bob Dylan – Like A Rolling Stone

#54 – The Cure – Close To Me

#53 – Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

#52 – You Am I – Berlin Chair

#51 – Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet With Butterfly Wings

#50 – Crowded House – Dont dream it’s over

#49 – Guns N Roses – Sweet Child O Mine

#48 – Beastie Boys – Sabotage

#47 – John Butler Trio – Betterman

#46 – Faith No More – Epic

#45 – Queens of the Stone Age – No One Know

#44 – The Beatles – Hey Jude

#43 – The Beach Boys – God Only Knows

#42 – Bloc Party – Banquet

#41 – Michael Jackson – Billie Jean

#40 – Nirvana – Come As You Are

#39 – Pearl Jam – Better Man

#38 – The Killers – Mr Brightside

#37 – Tool – Stinkfist

#36 – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Into My Arms

#35 – Smashing Pumpkins – 1979

#34 – The Living End – Prisoner Of Society

#33 – Silverchair – Tomorrow

#32 – New Order – Blue Monday

#31 – Metallica – Enter Sandman

#30 – Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower

#29 – Pixies – Where is My Mind? – Pixies

#28 – Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees

#27 – Powderfinger – My Happiness

#26 – Michael Jackson – Thriller

#24 – The Beatles – A Day in the Life

#25 – Pearl Jam – Alive

#23 – Hunters & Collectors – Throw Your Arms Around Me

#22 – Massive Attack – Teardrop

#21 – Powderfinger – These Days

#20 – White Stripes – Seven Nation Army

#19 – Metallica – One

#18 – Muse – Knights Of Cydonia

#17 – Hilltop Hoods – The Nosebleed Section

#16 – Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

#15 – Radiohead – Karma Police

#14 – The Verve – Bittersweet Symphony

#13 – Radiohead – Creep

#12 – Oasis – Wonderwall

#11 – John Lennon – Imagine

#10 – Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven

#9 – Foo Fighters – Everlong

#8 – Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Under The Bridge

#7 – Jeff Buckley – Last Goodbye

#6 – Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody

#5 – Radiohead – Paranoid Android

#4 – Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

#3 – Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah

#2 – Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name

#1 – Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

Source : www.triplej.net.au

Triple J Hottest 100 of all time 2009 is a post from: worldwormweb

Read the full story in  The Herald

Jerry Sienfeld Stars in Newcastle Bank Ad is a post from: worldwormweb

The basic package could get 2 new channels, Sky News Local and Lifestyle You. Sky News local will present news focused for Australia’s key cities and Lifestyle You will be based around personal makeovers, healthy living, parenting and relationships.

The existing High Definition offering will be boosted with the addition of Fox Sports HD 2 & 3, Fox 8 HD, W HD, Movie One HD, Movie Extra HD, Showtime HD, Showcase HD, Showtime Action HD and Starpics HD.

As well as the addition of High Definition Movie channels more Standard Definition Movie channels are on the way. Showtime Action, Showtime Drama, Showtime Comedy & Family Movie Channel providing G and PG rated movies before 9.30pm each day. Also added to the movie packages is Starpics a channel based on Hollywood news bios and previews.

Entertainment channels to be added to the Foxtel platform include: Nat Geo Wild – Wildlife and Nature Documentaries, Discovery Turbo , Style Network and 13th Street – A channel dedicated to murder mysteries. Kids will get  new channel KidsCo, owned in part by NBC Universal.

Sports fans should be happy with Eurosport to go with the increased High Definition offering from Fox Sports.

Along with the new channels will be enhancements to the way Foxtel is delivered. The EPG will be overhauled allowing the picking of up to 50 favourite channels, mini screens will show what you are currently watching while you are searching the EPG.

Foxtel will also allow you to download shows over an internet connection to your computer for viewing on that computer.

Pricing is yet to be confirmed but no doubt it will increase in line with the increased offering.

New Foxtel Channels revealed is a post from: worldwormweb

The re-broadcast of ONE HD’s content will be allocated channel number 531 when it is played out to Foxtel cable subscribers.

ONE SD will be grouped with the sports genre channels. ONE HD has already been available to cable viewers with High Definition channels.

For satellite subscribers the situation is less clear, due once again, to awaiting space on an Optus satellite due to go up later in the year.

By David Knox on June 27, 2009 at http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2009/06/one-sd-coming-to-foxtel-cable.html

ONE SD coming to Foxtel cable is a post from: worldwormweb

Well done @lilyroseallen on this one.

Lily Allen – Fuck You (Video) is a post from: worldwormweb

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25635029-7582,00.html

finally some action by Channel Nine on those crappy news pictures.

Nine News making ‘great leap’ into digital with latest hi-tech equipment | The Australian is a post from: worldwormweb

Prince Harry gets mobbed by the press… is a post from: worldwormweb

Sales of rear-projection TVs had been declining recently as LCD TVs gain in popularity and get bigger, Sony spokesman Shinji Obana said.

In October, Sony lowered its global sales forecast for rear-projection TVs – which uses a projector to create images on large screens – to 400,000 from 700,000, which is down from 1.1 million the previous fiscal year.

By contrast, Sony expects to sell 10 million LCD TVs this fiscal year through March, up from 6.3 million the previous year.

Sony sells 85 percent of its rear-projection TVs in the US, and about 10 percent in Europe, according to Obana. Production at the three plants that make the rear-projection TVs in Japan, Mexico and Malaysia, will be halted, Obana said.

The decision to abandon rear-projection TVs underlines Sony's strategy of focusing on LCDs and OLEDs at a time when competition is heating up in flat TVs.

In the fiscal half-year through September, Sony lost 60 billion yen ($US526.3 million) in its TV operations, partly because of losses tied to rear-projection TVs. Diving prices of LCD TVs also contributed to the red ink, Obana said.

The world's electronics makers are all working on LCD technology for TVs, as well as another technology called plasma display panels, or PDP.

Earlier this month, Sony began selling a small 11 inch TV that uses a relatively new but expensive flat-panel technology called OLED. Sony's XEL-1 measures just 3 millimeters, or 0.12 inches, thick and delivers clear, vivid images.

Earlier this week, Matsushita Electric Industrial, which makes Panasonic brand products, Hitachi and Canon forged a tie-up in their liquid crystal display businesses – another sign of how Japanese electronics makers are being forced to work together to compete globally.

Sony has an alliance with South Korea's Samsung Electronics in LCDs.

Sharp Corp, another major Japanese LCD maker, formed a partnership with Toshiba Corp last week. Under the deal, Toshiba will buy LCD panels from Sharp for its TVs.

AP

Source – SMH

Sony abandons rear-projection TVs is a post from: worldwormweb