World_Watch

<i>World Watch</i>

World Watch

Australian television news block

This article is about the television block. For the television channel, see SBS WorldWatch. For other uses, see Worldwatch.

World Watch, or WorldWatch, is a programming block on SBS and SBS Viceland, and a standalone television channel in Australia, that carries news bulletins from countries around the world. The World Watch service gives viewers the opportunity to see news bulletins in their native language. The majority of these bulletins are produced by public or state broadcasters.

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History

The WorldWatch program began on 24 August 1993 with news bulletins from the People's Republic of China, the United States, Germany and Russia.[1]

In June 2002, SBS launched the SBS World News Channel, providing repeats of aired bulletins on SBS in addition to updated bulletins.

In October 2003, Filipino, Vietnamese and Arabic were added to the World Watch schedule. However, the Vietnamese service was controversial as the broadcaster chosen was the government-controlled VTV4, which was seen as deeply offensive and seen as propaganda to many Vietnamese Australians who fled after the Vietnam War.[2] It was quickly removed on 17 October.[3]

In 2009, SBS replaced the World News Channel with SBS 2 (now SBS Viceland), and the bulletins also moved to the new channel under the "World Watch" banner. Bulletins air from 6:00am to 6:00pm, whereas SBS airs the bulletins between 5:00am and 1:30pm.

In 2010, SBS added three new languages: Portuguese, Urdu and Hindi.

In October 2015, SBS added eleven new bulletins to the World Watch schedule: African English, Armenian, Bengali, Bosnian, Nepali, Punjabi, Romanian, Sinhalese, Somali, Tamil and Thai; and created an English language line-up on SBS, which moved the Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin bulletins from SBS to SBS 2.[4]

Usually, before a WorldWatch bulletin, an intro animation revealing the city and country of origin of the bulletin, sometimes also including the full title of the bulletin, is shown, as well as a disclaimer, which, following the previously mentioned backlash over the choice of Vietnamese news broadcasts, explains that the bulletin may not reflect the network's standards and may include distressing content.

After a bulletin ends, information about other airtimes for that bulletin and airtimes for the bulletin language's SBS Radio program are shown, explained by a voiceover in the bulletin's native language. If the bulletin is in English, then no relevant information as mentioned is shown.

In early 2022, SBS announced that they are relocating most of non-English news bulletins from the World Watch programming block into their newly launched in-house news channel SBS WorldWatch, which launched on 23 May 2022, along with SBS-produced local news in both Arabic and Mandarin (which the latter two was premiered early on SBS On Demand since earlier that year), as both SBS and SBS Viceland are making some space for special events such as live sports that has been interrupt World Watch news bulletins (see below), although English news bulletins from international news channels (not to be confused with SBS-produced SBS World News) are still available to watch in the morning and midday.[5]

Bulletins

In determining the World Watch schedule, the policy of SBS has been to match the selection of news programs with the ethnic composition of the Australian population. The World Watch schedule includes news bulletins from Armenia, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, France, Fiji, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, Malta, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Somalia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The programs are usually broadcast unedited, and between the times of 2:30 am and mid-afternoon. However, SBS does edit programs under "exceptional circumstances"[6] where it breaches broadcasting regulations and its Codes of Practices. In addition, commercials and sponsorship messages are edited out, while the end of the program will also be cut out when the program runs overtime in its timeslot. Also, due to SBS broadcast rights to certain sporting events, particular bulletins can be axed from schedule to allow airtime for the sporting events. Very rarely does SBS ever fill in broadcast gaps with WorldWatch bulletins.

In case that SBS does not receive the program on time, the program's timeslot would be filled with either its WeatherWatch program or English-language programming from DW-TV in Germany.[7]

Current bulletins

English News bulletins

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Non-English News bulletins on SBS WorldWatch

See also: SBS WorldWatch § News bulletins
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Currently suspended

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Former bulletins

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Notes

  1. In early 2021, SBS suspended its Chinese-sourced Mandarin and English bulletins from CCTV and CGTN in response to a complaint from a human rights group that the channels were broadcasting "forced confessions."[9] CGTN bulletin for 6:30am timeslot was later replaced with English-language Deutsche-Welle bulletin instead.
  2. Programming from NTV and Russia Today was suspended on 25 February 2022 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine following feedback from Russian-speaking viewers. However, Russian-language programmes are still being offered on SBS Radio.[10]
  3. Currently available on SBS On Demand
  4. Listed as "Latin American News"

References

  1. [1]
    "Monday 23 August 1993 — MELBOURNE". Television.AU. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  2. [2]
    Gibbs, Stephen (2 December 2003). "Crunch time for SBS over Vietnamese news bulletin". The Age. Fairfax Media.
  3. [3]
    "A brief history of SBS (Archived)". Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 2 March 2007.
  4. [4]
    Sainsbury, Zoe (6 October 2015). "SBS to bring more breaking international news & culture to TV". SBS Radio. Special Broadcasting Service.
  5. [5]
    "SBS WorldWatch". SBS Corporate. Special Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  6. [6]
    "FAQ's – World Watch". Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 2 August 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
  7. [7]
    "SBS World Watch Intro for no news from ERT, Greece". Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  8. [8]
    "BBC News at Six news joins SBSs morning World Watch line-up". SBS Media Centre. Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
  9. [9]
    "SBS suspends Chinese-sourced news programming after receiving human rights complaint". SBS News. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
  10. [10]
    "Statement from SBS regarding acquired Russian TV news programming". SBS Corporate. Special Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  11. [11]
    "Télé Liban (TL)". Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 21 October 1997. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  12. [12]
    "Asia Television Limited (ATV)". Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 21 October 1997. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  13. [13]
    "SBS Television - What's on". Special Broadcasting Service. 22 February 2004. Archived from the original on 22 February 2004. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  14. [14]
    "Antenna Television SA (ANT1)". Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 21 October 1997. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  15. [15]
    "Telewizja Polska S.A. (TVP)". Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 21 October 1997. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
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