{"id":505,"date":"2008-06-26T16:03:26","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T06:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/?p=505"},"modified":"2008-06-29T06:24:12","modified_gmt":"2008-06-28T20:24:12","slug":"shaun-brown-putting-the-bs-in-sbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/?p=505","title":{"rendered":"Shaun Brown: Putting the BS in SBS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest act of <a href=\"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/?p=463\">philistinism<\/a> at SBS, the former public service broadcaster, now packed with ads and shows designed to attract just about anyone but those with an interest in foreign language programming, has been &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/saveoursbs.org\/archives\/287\">rebranded<\/a>.&#8217; In an incredibly lame attempt to play on the Special Broadcasting Service acronym, the tagline &#8216;Six billion stories and counting&#8230;&#8217; has been added&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/blogimages\/sbs_sixbillionstories.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;which is somehow vaguely reminiscent of some <strong><em>other<\/em><\/strong> massively crass commercialism&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/blogimages\/mcdonalds_99billion.jpg\" \/><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Bit of false advertising, don&#8217;t you think? After all, if each story takes even one scant minute, it&#8217;d take <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com.au\/search?q=six+billion+minutes+in+years\">11,407.9 years<\/a> to tell six billion of them- and SBS TV has only been with us since 1979. Regardless, SBS Managing Director Shaun Brown is presently trying to work out how to slot in ad breaks between <em>each<\/em> of those six billion stories- without alienating the remainder of SBS viewers. Fat chance.<\/p>\n<p>So, what will SBS viewers get for the paltry $10 million earned for the mid-program ad breaks Mr Brown has foisted upon us? An <a href=\"http:\/\/topgear.sbs.com.au\/\">Australian version<\/a> of BBC petrolhead program <a href=\"http:\/\/www.topgear.com\/\"><em>Top Gear<\/em><\/a>, featuring cartoonist Warren Brown. While I rather like both Warren Brown and BBC&#8217;s <em>Top Gear<\/em>, somehow, I don&#8217;t think this sort of program speaks to the world-view broadening, multicultural mission of SBS. Perhaps if they road-test the new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hmambassador.com\/grand\/index.asp\">Hindustan Ambassador<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>More useful SBS <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Backronym\">backronyms<\/a> could surely be invented&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/blogimages\/sbs_shaunbrownsucks.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/blogimages\/sbs_sackbrownsoon.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p> -weez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest act of philistinism at SBS, the former public service broadcaster, now packed with ads and shows designed to attract just about anyone but those with an interest in foreign language programming, has been &#8216;rebranded.&#8217; In an incredibly lame attempt to play on the Special Broadcasting Service acronym, the tagline &#8216;Six billion stories [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}