Some hope for SBS’s Jewish programs

OPEN dialogue between SBS and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) could save the broadcaster’s Hebrew and Yiddish radio programs from the axe.

ECAJ executive director Peter Wertheim and NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff met with SBS’s director of audio and language content, Dirk Anthony, and SBS strategy and planning manager Thang Ngo on Monday for more than an hour to discuss the criteria that will determine which radio programs will be cut later this year.

“SBS management has said that they want to work with us to ensure that communities such as ours will continue to be catered for as in the past,” Wertheim said.

“The purpose of the new criteria is to cater better for newly arrived minority communities, but without sacrificing radio programs for significant cultural and ethnic groups such as the Jewish community.”

The current criteria, which is open for public consultation until April 30, states that SBS will take into account the English language ­proficiency, recentness of arrival in Australia, household resources, unemployment levels and ageing population of each show’s listeners to determine the need for a language-specific show.

It is the first major reschedule since 1994 and, based on that criteria, it is feared that Jewish programs would not survive the cut.

Wertheim said that Ngo and Anthony recognise that the SBS Charter requires it to provide radio programs for multicultural communities, even though the Jewish community is atypical inasmuch as it does not identify with only one non-English language.

Alhadeff described the meeting as “productive and forward-looking” and said he was confident of a positive outcome.

An SBS spokesperson told The AJN this week that the meeting with the ECAJ was productive. “SBS is consulting on the draft criteria it is proposing for a review of the radio schedule because we want the views and feedback of communities,” the spokesperson said.

“SBS will take into account feedback from communities and individuals provided during the consultation process as it finalises the criteria that will then be used to determine a revised radio schedule.”

Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Nina Bassat said that SBS must remember that the census shouldn’t be the only source of information they rely on.

“In the census, Yiddish and Hebrew don’t come up as often as they should because they may not be the first language spoken at home,” Bassat said. “It may be your third or fourth language and that information is lost in the census.

“By the time I was nine I was speaking four languages.”

JOSHUA LEVI

ECAJ executive director Peter Wertheim