The SBS has tripled its digital radio team in the past 12 months as part of a shift towards podcasting and on-demand audio for new migrants with more funds likely to be diverted towards streaming content in the future.
SBS director of audio and language content Mandi Wicks said the digital-focused team had been bolstered in the past year from 10 to 30 staff as part of a change in the way the broadcaster provides new Australian immigrants with radio-style content.
This includes information for recent arrivals translated into multiple languages, such as the SBS Settlement Guide, as well as some shows and audio programs.
"More [new immigrants] are consuming on-demand content on their mobile phones," Ms Wicks said. Some countries have particularly high rates of digital use, including India and Pakistan.
"It’s an evolution of the services. The last seven languages we have added have all been with digital products rather than traditional radio," she said.
Since the last review of the radio content provided by the broadcaster at the end of 2017, the SBS has been focused on introducing Telegu, Karen, Tibetan, Hakha Chin, Rohingya, Mongolian and Kirundi language services. All of this content is accessed through the SBS Radio application or website.
Other existing language products have grown substantially, including SBS Arabic24 that was launched three years ago as a two-hour a day service and is now a 24-hour radio station. Arabic is the third most-spoken language in Australia (after English and Mandarin) and the station is geared towards 22 different Arabic-speaking nationalities including Lebanese, Iraqi and Egyptian.
The management teams of the ABC and SBS have recently been provided a more than 100-page report as part of an efficiency review into how taxpayer funds could be better used. The document has not yet been made public, but does recommend that the broadcasters have a greater focus on charter-aligned activities rather than lifestyle or broader food content.
One of the main focuses in the SBS charter is for "multilingual and multicultural radio, television and digital media services" to "inform, educate and entertain".
For this reason, Ms Wicks said providing these language services and digital radio was at the core of the public broadcaster’s charter for new arrivals to Australia and works alongside a "big role" for traditional radio content that she sees as complementary. The SBS is also investing in more subtitles on its television content.
The SBS reviews the languages it provides with audio content in line with new census data, showing which communities are growing, and determines how best to provide information to these groups and whether it should be in traditional formats or digital.
"The role of the SBS has never been more complex or more important," Ms Wicks said.
"There are many more language communities now in Australia than in the 1990s and different ways people want to listen to content," she said.
