Multicultural radio has long been a way of connecting South Asian communities in Australia, and public broadcaster SBS has traditionally serviced this through various language-based channels.
As of October 5, SBS will change the way in which listeners consume various radio programming, including content available in South Asian languages.
Some language programs will move to new timeslots to improve engagement, accessibility and ways for audiences to tune in, especially given listeners' changed consumption habits across live radio and catch-up content available on demand.
What this means for South Asian listeners is that SBS PopDesi will be rebranded into a destination channel for South Asian communities. Programs in Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Nepali, Malayalam, Punjabi, Sinhala, Tamil, Urdu will all feature on this channel, and there will be complete catch-up programs airing on existing evening and weekend timeslots on SBS Radio 1 or SBS Radio 2.
“Radio remains at the heart of what SBS does, from our humble beginnings as two ethnic radio stations in 1975 to this expanded schedule giving contemporary audiences of all backgrounds and ages even more ways to listen and connect with the content they love,” said David Hua, SBS Director of Audio and Language Content, in an official press release.
“As SBS looks ahead to its 50th anniversary, our diverse listeners will enjoy more live radio in the daytime as well as their favourite audio on demand especially during drive time. This is being driven by our ongoing focus on accelerating digital-first production across our full offering of radio, live streaming, digital publishing and podcasting.”