Source : http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22487572-30540,00.html

BELEAGUERED broadcaster SBS has come under fire from multicultural pay-television and radio broadcaster UBI World TV.

UBI is yet again seeking to promote itself as a significant force in ethnic broadcasting.

"I'd like to see some of the government funds come our way instead of $180 million being spent on an organisation that was supposed, in their original charter, to service the multicultural community," UBI president and chief executive Regina Boulos said. "You and I know it's not the case any more. It's yuppie programming, English language programming."

Several prominent SBS figures, including Mary Kostakidis and the broadcaster's former star Margaret Pomeranz, have recently lambasted SBS management and the board for diverging from its original charter to service ethnic communities while becoming a commercial entity.

But UBI is particularly bullish about ethnic programming, especially as the Arab world (and UBI channels) are enjoying their peak TV season, Ramadan.

UBI also continues to extend its reach as a broadcaster and marketer both on and off shore. The network, which is broadcasting 120 TV and radio channels in 12 languages, boasts 35,000 subscribers, according to Mrs Boulos.

It is in discussions with a number of platforms, including Foxtel, Telstra BigPond and Optus, to carry particular stations, and with burgeoning European sports network Setanta Sports to take its signal. Setanta is also rumoured to be launching soon on Foxtel.

The potential of the ethnic market continues to enthuse UBI, a network that emerged from the ashes of former multicultural broadcaster TARBS World, which was placed into administration three years ago.

About the same time Mrs Boulos's husband Mike, who started TARBS, was charged with tax fraud by the Australian Federal Police.

Charges are still pending and UBI, which says Mr Boulos is not a shareholder even though he owns its Sydney premises, would not comment on the matter.

Although World Media's MySat remains the Australian ethnic market leader thanks to its Al Jazeera and RAI channels, UBI sees an opportunity to market itself as a "middle man" to organisations and government looking to tap into ethnic communities.

The multicultural weakness at SBS is a particularly sore point at UBI given SBS has refused UBI's advertising because it is seen as a competitor. Yet Foxtel can advertise on SBS.

Now UBI hopes to use one of SBS's unused multichannels to broadcast ethnic TV.

"There's no comparison between UBI and SBS when they consider our ethnic market and what they provide to their ethnic market," said Daniel Geurs, UBI's head of sales and marketing. "We provide 24-hour channels and 120 of them in their language, whereas SBS will only provide a 30-minute news program for a language."

There is scepticism the Australian market can sustain broadcasters such as UBI; consequently Mrs Boulos clearly has her sights on emerging platforms.

UBI is also developing as a conduit for many international stations into other markets, delivering some Arabic channels to the US and European content into South America.

But the real area of expertise UBI expects to exploit is its marketing knowledge of disparate ethnic communities.

"A lot of organisations have seen the ethnic market as a nebulous, too-hard-to-deal-with thing and UBI is seen already as an organisation that has focused and invested on serving that market," she said.



My comment : it sounds like UBI want to start a Digital FTA channel on terrestrial with using one of SBS extra channels how good would that be with a mix of programming I say go for it UBI !!