Now I'll have to think of something else to whinge about...

This arrived a mere day and a half after my shirty email to SBS:

Dear Mary

Thank you for writing to express your concerns about changes to program
breaks on SBS Television. Your comments will be shared with SBS
management.

SBS has taken this course of action following a great deal of
consideration and investigation. It was not an easy decision to make,
but the alternative is less palatable.

SBS could continue with its current format, but its ability to
commission quality Australian productions and to purchase the world's
best films, television programs and sporting fixtures would become more
and more constrained by lack of funds and rising competition from Pay TV
and the other networks.

SBS obtains about 80% of its funds from Government, and the remainder
comes from advertising revenue. Even though that amount is relatively
small, it is vitally important revenue that goes exclusively to the
purchase, commissioning and production of programs.

Under its Act, SBS is obligated to operate in an efficient and
cost-effective manner and, importantly, it is required to actively
pursue funding opportunities independent of Government funding.

The Act also stipulates that SBS is not permitted to show more than
five minutes of commercial advertisements in an hour, considerably less
than the 13-15 minutes typically shown by commercial networks. This will
not change.

Up to now, SBS has run five minute blocks of ads between programs and
the most immediate effect of this is more than 50% of our viewers switch
channels. Because of this reduced audience, our advertising rates have
to be pegged at levels far below the commercial networks.

By placing short ads within programs when we reach peak audiences, our
advertising rates (and revenue) can be increased. All of this additional
revenue, as mentioned previously, will go into the commissioning and
purchasing of programs.

Thank you again for taking the time to write to SBS, you are obviously
a committed, regular viewer; please be assured that your comments along
with others we have received will be given due consideration.

Yours sincerely,

David Lance
Manager, Public Relations

Poor little SBS, people leaving them when they have ads between programs! I'm sure most of those people change channels because the next show will be of absolutely NO interest to them. SBS simply isn't one of those channels you can watch all night. The shows are just too diverse. No-one is interested in both Russian and Vietnamese news and then willing to hang around for dodgy German cop shows and soccer or documentaries about war torn countries. And I don't think South Park fans are all in the Dateline target audience. At least, I never watch Dateline.