The Australian Government will hold a referendum later this year to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. To mark this important milestone, this week,’40 Years 40 Stories’ highlights a relatively new partnership on First Nations media content exchange between Australia’s multicultural and multilingual broadcaster SBS, and Taiwan’s Indigenous Television (TITV). The following contribution is with thanks to the team at SBS.
As Australia’s multicultural and multilingual public media organisation, and the home of National Indigenous Television (NITV), SBS places a high value in its relationship with Taiwan Indigenous Television (TITV).
NITV is the home of Indigenous storytelling in Australia, and has a longstanding partnership with TITV in Taiwan – Asia’s first television channel dedicated to Indigenous stories. This partnership provided a strong foundation on which to build the recent signing of a content partnership between SBS Australia and TITV.
This deeper cooperation means TITV’s content now has the potential to reach a broader audience in Australia via inclusion in SBS’s flagship Mandarin TV news bulletin on SBS’s Worldwatch channel.
SBS launched SBS Worldwatch in 2022 as a dedicated 24-hour free-to-air channel featuring news bulletins from leading international broadcasters in more than 35 languages.
With Mandarin being Australia’s most widely spoken language other than English, a key pillar of the SBS WorldWatch launch was the creation of Australia’s first ever locally-produced Mandarin language TV news bulletin, shown five nights a week.
The expanded content partnership with TITV will make valuable contributions to SBS’s suite of Mandarin language offerings.
Both Taiwan and Australia have rich Indigenous cultures and histories, and the partnership between SBS and TITV has the potential to contribute to a deeper and richer relationship between our organisations and our island homes.