Broadcast TV as we know it is currently taking its last gasp. The  PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2010-1014 report may have found that free-to-air television has found a renewed stability from an audience and advertising standpoint, however this surely cannot continue to last. Long-promised internet-capable TVs are finally becoming a reality, while digital television has FTA broadcasters spreading their resources thin across multiple digital TV platforms.

TV broadcasters need to determine their digital futures and work on developing bridging strategies. Of all the commercial broadcasters, SBS Television should offer the most potential of any established Australian broadcast TV organisation. And yet, it is  floundering.

SBS has reached a new low. Mumbrella reports that Sunday night saw the channel achieve a new low share of 3.5%. This places the channel as eighth for the night — behind Seven, Nine, Ten, ABC1, 7Two, Go!, and One. Only ABC2, ABC3, and ABC News 24 fell behind SBS1 and SBS2. The past decade has seen SBS abandon its multicultural ethos, instead chasing the mainstream audience already catered for by the other commercial channels. Clearly this is an approach that hasn’t worked. SBS is losing repeatedly to six commercial channels of opposition on a distribution platform that is shedding viewers.

With TV already evolving beyond the broadcast signal, it is important for SBS to determine what it represents as an organisation and to refocus its content and branding accordingly if it is to retain any relevancy in the new television environment.