SBS TWO Turns ONE

This one almost slipped away unnoticed! No fanfares, no cakes, no parties… how could I forget?

6pm June 1 marked the first birthday of SBS’s second digital channel SBS TWO. SBS TWO replaced the SBS News channel which previously had only been broadcasting international news bulletins for most of the day.

While the International news is still available until 6pm on SBS TWO as well as SBS ONE in the mornings, SBS TWO has allowed SBS to offer more content then it could just on the one channel.

SBS TWO as a multi channel does not exactly set the ratings world on fire – with shares of around 0.4% on average of the total TV viewing audience, and about 10% of those of SBS ONE, but it has been able to compliment SBS ONE at times where sporting commitments overlap – such as in July 2009 when both the Tour de France and the Test Cricket were on at the same time – SBS TWO allowed one event to be shown while the other was aired on SBS ONE.

With the World Cup Soccer starting June 11 (and SBS remind us of that date after every ad break at the moment) anti-siphoning rules have been temporarily relaxed to allow SBS to show different games on both SBS ONE and SBS TWO concurrently – meaning viewers with access to both channels will have the choice of two games to watch live. Games played on SBS TWO will be repeated on SBS ONE at a later time. Games on SBS ONE will also be seen in HD on SBS ONE HD.

Selected soccer games will also be shown in 3D on SBS 3D, digital channel 40 – the same channel Nine is using for 3D coverage of the State of Origin, the second game of which occurs on June 16.

Happy Birthday, SBS TWO – albeit a day late!