SBS Radio

Infobox Radio station
name = SBS Radio


area = flagicon|Australia Australia (national) via AM, FM and satellite
slogan = "The many voices of one Australia"
airdate = 1975
frequency = Varies
owner = Special Broadcasting Service
website = http://www.radio.sbs.com.au
format = Multilingual

SBS Radio is a service provided by the Special Broadcasting Service '..to inform, educate and entertain Australians, especially those of non-English speaking backgrounds'. SBS Radio originally began as two stations based in Melbourne and Sydney, set up to provide pre-recorded information about the then-new Medibank health care system in languages other than English. Today the service targets the estimated 2.7 million Australians who speak a language other than English in the home, in addition to more mainstream audiences through programs such as World View and Alchemy [http://www.radio.sbs.com.au/index.php?page=ab About SBS Radio] SBS Corporation, accessed 27 May 2007] .

Like SBS Television, SBS Radio supplements its government funding with paid-for information campaigns for government agencies and non-profit organisations as well as commercial advertising and sponsorship.

Programming and Content

Most programs contain a mix of news, current affairs, sport, community information and music relating to a specific ethnic or language group. The exceptions are "Alchemy" (a youth program), two English language news programs, and overnight programming from the BBC World Service.

SBS Radio has three services.

The first is called "Radio 1" and "SBS FM". In Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra it is transmitted on classic radio on an FM frequency and in that context it called SBS FM "XXXX" (where XXXX is the frequency for the city it is transmitted to ). It is also available nationwide through digital terrestrial television (where it is called "Radio 1") ,and on satellite from free-to-air Optus D1 and Optus B3 C-Band satellite transmissions, and on major subscription television services (such as Foxtel and Austar). The Melbourne radio transmitters broadcast a little local variation, but the Melbourne digital television services carry the standard Sydney-based feed.

The second is called "Radio 2" and "SBS AM". In Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra it is transmitted on classic radio on an AM frequency and in that context it called SBS AM "XXXX" (where XXXX is the frequency for the city it is transmitted to). It is also available nationwide through digital terrestrial television (where it is called "Radio 2") ,and on satellite from free-to-air Optus D1 and Optus B3 C-Band satellite transmissions, and on major subscription television services (such as Foxtel and Austar). The Melbourne radio transmitters broadcast a little local variation, but the Melbourne digital television services carry the standard Sydney-based feed. Note: "AM" is sometimes labeled as "MW" on the radio. AM refers to the modulation type, and MW referred to the frequency range.

The third service is the "National" service, which is composed of material from Radio 1 and Radio 2. For classic analogue radio( AM or FM) , it is only transmitted outside Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. It is transmitted on FM at some transmitters and on AM on other transmitters. SBS National is also broadcast free-to-air on satellite by Optus Aurora [http://www.sbs.com.au/transmission.html] .

Additionally, a few community stations in areas without dedicated SBS Radio transmitters carry some SBS Radio content.

Languages

As of 2003, SBS Radio broadcasts in the following languages:

* Aboriginal¹
* African¹
* Albanian²
* Amharic
* Arabic
* Armenian
* Assyrian²
* Bangla²
* Bosnian²
* Bulgarian⁴
* Burmese
* Cantonese
* Cook Islands/Maori²
* Croatian
* Czech
* Danish
* Dari
* Dutch
* Estonian
* Filipino
* Fijian²
* Finnish
* French
* German
* Greek
* Gujarati³
* Hebrew
* Hindi
* Hungarian
* Indonesian
* Italian
* Japanese
* Kannada³
* Khmer
* Korean
* Kurdish²
* Lao
* Latvian
* Lithuanian
* Macedonian
* Malay
* Maltese
* Mandarin
* Maori
* Nepali³
* Norwegian²
* Persian
* Polish
* Punjabi²
* Portuguese
* Romanian
* Russian
* Samoan²
* Serbian
* Sinhalese
* Slovak
* Slovenian
* Somali
* Spanish
* Swedish
* Tamil
* Thai
* Tongan
* Turkish
* Ukrainian
* Urdu
* Vietnamese
* Yiddish

Notes
# Aboriginal and African services are mostly conducted in English. The German service includes English segments.
# Only available in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
# Only available in Sydney and Canberra.
# Only available in Melbourne.

References

External links

* [http://www.radio.sbs.com.au/index.php SBS Radio Homepage]
* [http://www.radio.sbs.com.au/index.php?page=df SBS Radio Frequencies]
* [http://www.radio.sbs.com.au/index.php?page=ds Radio Schedule]