The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 27

ALL CHANGE FROM WW TRunrmiSiiiii ffasM dkrefleB The segments of suc cess for SBS: anticlockwise, from top left: The network's first boss? Bruce Gyngell, who still sees SBS as being a "complementary and supplementary the presenter of the new 'Midweek' program, Patrice Newell; film man David Strat-ton, whose 'Cinema Classics' is being axed in favor of a new film format; and 'Rock Around the World' presenter Basia Bonkowski whose show vanishes as does Basia, who has been offered a script-writing position with the network. WHEN Channel 0-28 began transmission at 6.30pm on United Nations Day, 24 October 1980, the message was that multicultural television was not only for THEM, it was for US, too. With Bruce Gyngell at the helm, Channel 0-28 eventually was to position itself as one of the five regular channels in Melbourne and Sydney. Gyngell declared the network would not chase ratings but he hoped to change radically the viewing habits of Prisoner-addicted Australians. "I believe our main target lies in the monolingual, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Celtic Australians as much as, if not more so, the community (ethnic) groups," said an optimistic Gyngell.

"If we can expose people to ideas they haven't seen before, that will lead to some understanding. Understanding leads to tolerance, and tolerance ultimately will lead to a cohesive-ness in society." He added the word He knew he was asking for a cultural revolution. At first it seemed Gyngell's dreams were to be realised. In 1981 he quoted a ratings study showing 27 per cent of surveyed viewers named Channel 0-28 as their first or second choice of the five Melbourne television stations. He predicted the channel would reach its optimum audience level sooner than expected and that it would be larger than critics had assumed.

Then in January 1982 a survey conducted at Channel 0-28 revealed more than 25 per cent of Australians watched the channel more than once a week, not bad considering that because of poor reception the station reached only about 20 per cent of Sydney. The station added that about 98 per cent of people in any given ethnic group watched all programs in their own language. One of Channel 0-28's successes was (and still is) George Donikian and the comprehensive international news service. The channel also showed quality drama series, documentaries and films which could have pleased all Australians regardless of their racial backgrounds. Channel 0-28, the first network of its kind in the world, was drawing close to its aspirations.

But by late 1982 at least some viewers were noticing the channel's programming seemed less enthusiastic and imaginative. Gyngell had left, repeats had arrived and it looked as if previously carefully balanced nights of entertainment had been replaced on occasions by the practice of slotting in programs to fill in time. It also was clear that Channel 0-28 was not drawing significant numbers in Melbourne and Sydney (probably in part because of the poor reception) compared with the audience commercial channels were pulling. The network executives emphasised they weren't hankering after a mass audience but rather inducing people to sample a range of programs over a long period. That shrew, Dame Edna Everage, remarked that no one except "poor old Al Grassby" watched multicultural television.

It was a cruel exaggeration but contained an element of truth by 1984 Channel 0-28 had its fans, particularly among the ethnic groups, but Norm and Noreen Suburban still preferred Prisoner. BRUCE Gyngell now is managing-director of TV-am Ltd, a London television station, and he is reluctant to admit he was aiming too high in the early 1980s. He emphasises that the original concept behind multicultural television was to encourage racial tolerance between Anglo-Saxons and new Australians and consequent generations. He adds that if only one or two white Australians watched multicultural television, the experiment was a success. "While I was with 0-28, 1 was in a taxi one day when the driver, a white Australian, recognised me as 'that bloke from the wog Channel'.

"He told me that he used to loathe Italians but he watched their movies on 0-28 and had changed his mind. I believe you need to change only one or two people's opinions and it has worked. It is quality, not quantity that, matters. I always have seen 0-28 as a complementary and supplementary channel to the others." Gyngell says he was in Australia for Christmas and watched 0-28. In his opinion the station is as good as ever.

THE DEBATE about the success or failure of multicultural television in Australia promises to be a protracted one. But the fact remains (and lends weight to the argument that Channel 0-28 has not reached its target audience) that 1985 is to be a year of change for the network. From Monday 18 February the station will have a new name SBS-TV and image, programming schedule and programs and it will begin to move towards near-national penetration. These changes may well be accompanied by the sort of excitement and innovative approach present at 0-28's birth. Norm and Noreen's viewing habits are not the only motivations behind the remodelling but they are important.

Because the network plans to expand to Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle and Wol-longong in mid-1985, with Perth and Ho-bart following in early 1986, the stimulus is there to make an impact on Australian audiences generally. SBS-TV aims at offering a better service for ethnic communities throughout Australia while making the service more accessible to all Australians. Lachlan Shaw, head of television at the channel, wants to see SBS-TV build on 0-28's audience as well as provide a service acceptable anywhere in the country. And besides, it's time for a change. After 18 February SBS-TV will begin daytime transmission from 1 lam to 2pm, Monday to Friday, and shift workers and others at home can enjoy language films and drama series.

Evening transmissions will begin at 5.30pm. New public affairs programs will be introduced in an effort to secure more of the information-hungry audience the commercial stations have pulled with such shows as 60 Minutes. They include Midweek presented by Patrice Newell on Wednesday nights and Dateline presented by Paul Murphy on Friday nights. Issues 1985 will return in mid-March. There are casualties resulting from the changes.

Rock Around The World with Basia Bonkowski will be replaced after Saturday 16 February with a new magazine style rock program, Kulture Shock, on Tuesdays at 6pm. Up-and-coming bands, interviews with personalities, comedy and news of the music and theatre industry will be included in the new show. Basia Bonkowski. who has been offered a position with SBS-TV, writing presenters' scripts, was surprised to learn of the change. "It (Rock Around The World) was the second most consistently rating program apart from the news and it was well respected in the music industry.

But I feel it has gone as far as it can go on SBS-TV. I'm not disappointed. A lot of my work previously was behind the scenes and I find that fascinating." David Stratton's Cinema Classics is another victim of SBS-TV's new image. It will be discontinued after Tuesday 12 February and be replaced by Movie Of The Week, a mix of classic and contemporary films, on Sunday evenings at 9.30. We will see fewer quality old movies.

Classics will be seen in either the Sunday evening Movie Of The Week timeslot or in the daytime, but the programming of a number of classics under a common theme or by a particular film-maker will be no more. Some viewers are bound to be unimpressed. During two years Cinema Classics has shown more than 100 fine old movies by some of the world's most valued film-makers. But Stratton, always a diplomat, will say only: "I am pleased to be in a position as presenter of Movie Of The Week. I hope the new format will be an opportunity to show some famous classics alongside more contemporary SBS-TV is resisting the urge to extend its news service into an hour-long current affairs and news mix as the ABC and Channel 9 have done, or as an hour-long news program as Channel 10 has managed so successfully.

No, SBS-TV prefers to go its own way. World News will remain a half-hour bulletin but will move to 7pm Monday to Sunday (replacing the present times of 7.30pm weeknights and 6.30pm weekends) to give viewers greater flexibility. Continued: PAGE 9 WE HAVE A LARGE GENUINE CLEARANCE COLLECTION OF CLASSICAL RECORDS. INCLUDING OPERA, OF OUR STOCK OF RECORDS FROM SYMPHONIC WORKS VOCAL 'I WORKS, AS WELL AS BLUES, THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD TO CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS. JAZZ, ETHNIC MUSIC POP.

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