SBS (Special Broadcasting Service)

SBS is Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service. It is a statutory body who’s mission is to provide multilingual and multicultural broadcasting. Australians rely on SBS to provide unbiased information that informs all. The SBS charter states:

The principal function of the SBS is to provide multilingual and multicultural broadcasting and digital media services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia’s multicultural society.

Pride in Diversity Membership

SBS has been a member of Pride in Diversity for a number of years.

AWEI Performance History

SBS have been consistently achieving gold-level performance in the AWEI for a number of years. SBS was first listed as a media sponsor of the AWEI in 2018.

2021 AWEI Summary

SBS AWEI 2021 Submission (14MB)

The AWEI is broken up into 10 sections. Section 1 has 4 sub-sections. Organisations can choose to “carry over” points from this section for up to 3 years. Sections 9-10 must be completed each year to gain points.

Commentary

As longstanding gold performers and silver media partners, SBS’s AWEI submission contains a lot of notable data.

• Section 1 Q9 – misgendering and deadnaming are classified as “unlawful harassment”
• Section 2 Q8 – Used consulting time to develop LGBTIQ training course
• Section 6 Q34 – Executives speaking at Pride in Sport events
• Section 8 Q40 – Contra deals to advertise for ACON
• Section 10 Q43 – Episode of Insight inspired by activity performed for previous year’s AWEI
• Section 10 Q43 – Commissioned research on behalf of ACON

SBS AWEI 2021 Scorecard

This is the score and the comment that SBS received for each question in their 2021 AWEI Submission.

Sponsorship

SBS is listed as a sponsor of the 2021 AWEI Awards and boasts “contra deals” in place for sponsorship of ACON. As SBS’s sponsorship is “in kind”, there is no concrete dollar value associated. Some activities associated with sponsorship or in pursuit of AWEI points include (but are not limited to):

•  Riccardo Goncalves MCing the 2020 AWEI awards
• A contra deal to pre-pay advertising for ACON at the Honour Awards
• Televising the AWEI award ceremony
• Ken Shipp, SBS’s Director of Sport, spoke at the ACON Pride in Sport Awards in October 2020
• SBS Director of Indigenous Content and the Head of the NITV Business Tanya Denning Orman spoke at the Pride in Practice Conference in 2020
• An episode of SBS Insight inspired by a Wear It Purple event that was held in 2020 to gain AWEI points

Contra Deals for Talent (Q40 and others)

Question 40 – SBS has a number of contra deals, and lends talent to ACON, Pride in Diversity and AWEI events in exchange for points.

Lending top talent with household name recognition is a huge PR boost for ACON.

SBS Insight (2020)

In February 2020, SBS Insight ran an episode called “Coming Out With Faith“. This was listed in the 2021 AWEI submission under “additional work” and picked up 1 point.

From the AWEI submission:

“SBS current affairs program “Insight” ran an episode in February 2020 focused entirely on the intersection between sexuality and faith. What makes this episode all the more special to our Pride Committee is that the episode was directly inspired by an internal staff-only panel we held in 2019 for Wear It Purple Day”

“This panel was such a success internally, that it inspired not only our audience but also the Executive Producer of Insight Ross Scheeper’s to spend the next 6 months researching
this moving episode of Insight before airing it nationally on SBS Television in 2020.”

SBS AWEI 2021, Q43

The “Wear It Purple Day” event that inspired the episode was organised by the SBS Pride Committee. The single largest-scoring section in the AWEI describes how the Pride Committee should function in line with ACON’s agenda. Observing “Wear It Purple Day” is specifically suggested by ACON in the scoring guide for Q21 “Days of Significance”.

ACON has not only directed SBS staff to raise the profile of Wear It Purple within SBS, it has been able to spark the production of an entire episode of Insight.

Trans and Gender Diverse Applicant Support Guide (100KB)

SBS supplied a large number of attachments with via their Freedom of Information release. Here is the Trans and Gender Diverse Applicant Support Guid. This document counts toward earning 6 points in Section 1 Question 18.

Note:

• Using SBS’s handling of staff gender transition to entice new candidates
• Special arrangements for reference checking

SBS Pride Guide

SBS released a public version of their internal “Pride Guide”. In it, they describe gay with reference to same-gender not same-sex attraction:

Gay refers to someone who is romantically and sexually attracted to people of the same gender identity as themselves.

LGBTIQ+ Diversity Training Course (Q8)

SBS, with the paid assistance of Pride in Diversity, have created a LGBTIQ+ training course compliant with ACON’s message. Several Pride in Diversity member organisations purchase the course from SBS.

Question 8 – SBS earned 4 AWEI points for developing an LGBTIQ+ diversity course in line with ACON’s values.

SBS commentary notes that they developed this in consultation with Pride in Diversity consultants.

Area 1: engaging with potential clients/customers- below is a screenshot from our SBS Inclusion Program Sales Proposal pack. This slide details the LGBTIQ+ course that SBS has developed along with PID and is in market selling to businesses around Australia in order to help them become more inclusive places of work for their employees.

SBS AWEI Submission Section 2 Question 8

Working on ACON’s Behalf

Some examples of SBS undertaking promotion or research work on behalf of ACON: