SBS says translated election debates helped public ‘engage fully’

SBS managing director James Taylor has said the multicultural broadcaster’s efforts to live-translate federal election campaign coverage for people who don’t speak english as a first language helped them better understand political issues that would affect their future.

The taxpayer-funded broadcaster aired translated versions of all three televised debates during the six-week campaign for the first time, in a concerted effort to find new ways to leverage its multilingual capacity. Taylor, who declined to comment on specific TV ratings figures other than to say it attracted “tens of thousands”, said it was the strongest election coverage in the broadcaster’s history.

“That was evidenced by a lot of our approaches, possibly most prominently the fact that SBS was the only network to have every single election debate on its platform,” he said. “We were able to share those critical pieces of the democratic story with communities who might not otherwise have been able to engage fully.”

Taylor said the live translations as well as other efforts – such as the First Nations coverage on NITV – allowed Australia’s multicultural and indigenous communities to engage during the federal election on issues that mattered to them. The Sky News debate was aired on SBS in Mandarin and Arabic, while Nine and Seven’s debates also ran in Cantonese and Vietnamese. Taylor said the decision on which languages was reflective of the Australian population and the growth trajectory of communities.

He said the in-language interpretations of the debates, which were an extension of efforts to translate COVID-19 press conferences last year, were on SBS On Demand and via Facebook “tens of thousands”.

“I absolutely do [think the coverage has helped people shape views],” he said. “We’ve helped people understand the issues that they were struggling to connect with. It’s a really vital service for Australia and one that’s more important, as we see more people coming into the country in the coming years.”

Taylor did not have a breakdown on how many viewers were able to vote, but said the televised debates were attracting young people who clearly cared about society. “That’s a really important marker of the criticality of a strategy,” he said.

“I don’t have a breakdown between voting and non-voting populations but I would suggest that, irrespective of informing people’s voter intent, I think everyone wants to understand the society they’re living in.”

SBS declined to provide specific TV ratings figures, which are typically smaller given the offering is more niche than networks such as the ABC, Nine, Seven and Ten. But Taylor said he hopes engagement with SBS’ platforms remains when it launches its sixth free-to-air channel, WorldWatch, this week.