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Unsuited as it may appear, the Special Broadcasting Service’s home in light-industrial Artarmon is a fitting place for a network attempting to address an identity crisis and the media revolution on scant resources.

When SBS television commenced on October 24, 1980 – United States Day – it started with a documentary, Who Are We? It had been a nod to the reason for SBS’s being : to strengthen the social policy of multiculturalism.

Thirty years on, a broadcaster that started with commercial-free radio and TV built to showcase Australia’s cultural diversity now receives a third of its income from advertising. To several it is better called the station that brought Top Gear down under, and the home of football and the Tour de France.

In the government’s review of public broadcasting two years back, one viewer bitched that SBS had changed from ”a terribly special broadcaster of the past, into a de facto commercial lookalike”. In essence, he asked : who are you, SBS?

Chris Berg, a research fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs, goes further : why are you still here? He is saying SBS has dropped into ”almost complete irrelevance”. ”It can’t possibly hope to cater for the sheer diversity of migrant communities in Australia in 2011, and those communities have access to home content thru online and satellite services,’ ‘ he says.

”The writing has been on the wall for SBS for many years, but it lumbers on usually because state programs are extraordinarily hard to shut down.’ ‘

The government professes strong support, but that’s not paired with strong funding. In the last funding round, SBS won $20 million extra, but the ABC got $180 million, while the worthwhile commercial networks were relieved of $250 million in licence charges. SBS runs two Television channels and four radio stations on 1 / 4 of Channel Seven’s cash and less than a 3rd of the ABC’s.

The internet has brought a deeper challenge, undercutting the reason for its existence. Folk can now hear, see and read their own languages and cultures online when they desire from their homelands.

But SBS’s new MD, Michael Ebeid, believes it is required now more than ever.

Ebeid, 45, personifies the broadcaster’s inclusiveness. Born in Egypt, schooled at Epping Boys High and a previous head of marketing at the ABC, Ebeid lives in East Sydney with his partner, Roland, a Qantas pilot.

A quarter into the job, he has settled into his pitch. ”Today, we’ve got double the quantity of folks who talk another language than 35 years back when SBS was set up,’ ‘ he says. ”So I might argue that cultural complexity [means] SBS is required and is more important today than ever.’ ‘

Cultural enclaves may develop if migrants get all of their stories from home. ”It means they are not getting news and current affairs from an Australian point of view and, more importantly, news and current affairs about Australia,’ ‘ he is saying. ”I think that sure is a real worry for our society.’ ‘ SBS can help by reporting Australian issues in migrants ‘ languages.

As for the tougher question of the SBS identity, he would like to take it back to charter basics : less Top Gear and more Go Back To Where You Came From, which took six Australians distrustful about asylum seekers to Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the time it aired it was SBS’s preferred program of the year – 524,000 viewers on the 1st night. The other networks frequently do double that. Its prime-time chunk of the national audience has been about 6 per cent for the past six years.

But its point is to be niche, and Ebeid welcomes it. ”We are returning to being a rather more distinctive organisation,’ ‘ he says. A ”large majority’ ‘ of programs will concentrate on a charter that needs ”multilingual and multicultural’ ‘ programs which ”inform, entertain and educate all Australians and, in doing therefore reflect Australia’s multicultural society”.

His main worry is whether he is able to afford to get there.

The responsible minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, announces SBS is ”one of Australia’s most important cultural institutions’ ‘ – but there is no doubt SBS is struggling.

This week while it announced a real life show, Bollywood Star, it also canned its only forthcoming local drama. Dusty was to be a series based mostly on a detective in Darwin, in the tradition of current offerings East West 101 and The Circuit.

It just hasn’t got the money for expensive Australian drama. ”We don’t have anything on our commissioning slate for significant drama and I suspect that’s a real shame.’ ‘

The additional $20 million Conroy won for SBS is, in television terms, peanuts, especially as it must compete with other broadcasters scrambling to fill their digital channels.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says : ”They are getting hit from a spread of fronts, and we think the most significant concern for the station is a substantial increase in public funding.’ ‘

Its three-year deal will be displayed in the subsequent budget, and Ludlam says the Greens will make ”a large deal’ ‘ about its future.

Of its $207 million income in 2009-10, two thirds came from the govt. Its stake in the pay TV channels World Films and Stvdio provided $6 million, while $78 million came from advertising, first authorized on a public broadcaster by the Work central authority in 1991.

Those rules were re-interpreted to permit commercial breaks to interrupt programs and SBS told a Senate guesses investigation this year junking them would cost it $45 million a year – just about 1 / 4 of its earnings.

Ebeid is optimistic about a funding boost, but given the government’s determination to revisit surplus, he is not assured. His minister may be ”very supportive’ ‘ but he’s ”very realistic”.

If the money does come, SBS wants to offer four channels within 5 years, improved reports and current affairs, more local programs and lots more online and on-demand.

And if the money doesn’t come? Ebeid warns of ”a lot harder decisions’ ‘ on what to show and what to skip. It raises the chance of having to choose between entire migrant groups ; already some African groups miss out.

The government has asked it to launch a native Television service with the $15 million it gives Countrywide Indigenous Television, displaying on pay Television and in remote Aboriginal communities. Ebeid wants an indigenous channel but says the quality needs to improve and so does the money.

”I don’t want to be running 3 underfunded TV networks,’ ‘ he says. ”Fifteen million may seem like a lot but it’s not when you have to commission content. You can’t buy indigenous content from the BBC.”

Ebeid spends much of his time lobbying for money – the government, other parties and the ethnic communities who are his network’s first audience. Their support is seen as vital to winning extra money. ”Arguably, not a lot of politicians watch SBS, but I am able to bet that a lot of their constituents do’ as reported tagza.com.

The MTV alternative rock show was a Sunday night immersion in music that wasn’t played on mainstream radio. It gave wide exposure to the peculiar, the offbeat and the downright iconoclastic, and made a dedicated following. The remainder of the week was devoted to Madonna and Def Leppard ; for fans of the Pixies, Hsker D, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and other alternative favourites, there were only those precious 2 hours.

“’120 Minutes’ has always stood for something important,” asserts Matt Pinfield, 44, who hosted the show in the mid-’90s and became its most familiar personality. “It’s about going past the conventional and showing you that there had been other great music out there that you won’t know. And always presented with enthusiasm, rather than hipster cynicism.”

It was Pinfield who brought much of that passion. The excitable, bald-headed radio vet, who began his career at Rutgers’ WRSU-FM, looked nothing like a standard MTV veejay. That simply made him relatable. Pinfield was the guy down the hall in the school sleeping area the one whose formidable collection of cassettes and vinyl seemed to grow by the day.

Pinfield, who is living in Harrison, never lost his on-camera happiness or his admiration for musical lead runners. And he cultivated a simple rapport with musicians, which made for some of the most relaxed, natural interview segments in the network’s history.

Pinfield left “120 Minutes” in 1999 ; in 2003, it was canceled. The show’s amalgam of offbeat videos, choice classic cuts, clockwork imagery and interview segments was occasionally imitated by other video programs. But no successor to “120 Minutes” ever appeared. It is debatable that YouTube and other free video-sharing sites on the internet are that successor, and that “120 Minutes” is no longer necessary.

Last week, though, MTV revived the show and placed Pinfield back in his standard command position. It has even put the deejay’s name in the show’s handle. “120 Minutes with Matt Pinfield” will air monthly on MTV2 at one a.m. On Saturdays, and episodes will stream afterward on mtvhive.com. (The 1st episode, which was shot in part at the Arlene’s Grocery club in Manhattan, is presently on the site.)

Pinfield, who deejayed at the Tune Bar in New Brunswick in the early ’90s, is ecstatic about the possibility. He believes the time is correct for the program’s resurrection.

“In the old days of ’120 Minutes,’ unless you had some unimaginable state-of-the-art rock radio stations in your area, you couldn’t hear these songs,” claims Pinfield. “Now it’s the opposite problem. There’s so much info. What’s needed is a curator, a filter, a reliable place to go.”

A TV programme, he recommends, is suitable better than a music blog or an algorithm-driven service like Pandora.

“A lot of those sites lack that personal thing. Who has a year, or a week, to go thru 1,000 websites?”

Ahead Of HIS TIME

Pinfield’s decision to leave “120 Minutes” after five successful years on the program was lead to by his desire to carry on looking forward. He was one of the originators of farmclub.com, a fleeting website tethered to a real life show on USA that tried to match hopeful musicians with record labels.

Pinfield sees similarities between farmclub.com and social networking platforms like Myspace and Bandcamp, which at last did change the relationships between imprints, artists and fans.

“It was one of the first composite projects,” announces Pinfield, who moved to LA to work on farmclub.com. “I did that with Jimmy Iovine, and I learned so much in those years. It was before its time, really.”

It was also identical in scope to “120 Minutes.” At base, farmclub.com attempted to do the same that the alternative video show did : introduce underexposed music to a mass audience. Pinfield was galvanized by the same desire that prompts pop fans to play their new discoveries for their mates, or that forces all good deejays to break out fresh vinyl. He’s informed of something rare, peculiar, and maybe even shocking, and he’s determined to share it with as many people as practicable.

“Everything’s become so subgenre-fied,” announces Pinfield. “Pop radio has its formula, and that true passion of distinctiveness gets lost. There needs to be a destination on the TV and online for musical creativity.”.

The original “120 Minutes” was dominated by white men in rock bands, but this time, hip-hop will have a place at the table, too. The 1st copy of the show featured interviews with Alexis Krauss of NY fuzz-pop act Sleigh Bells ( a group heavily influenced by the first wave of “120 Minutes” bands ) and Brooklyn rap ironists Das Racist. Emcees Lupe Fiasco and Theophilus London both of whom have new albums out this summer also talked with Pinfield. In keeping with Pinfield’s genre-bending mission, London called Smiths figurehead Morrissey “one of the illest rappers.”

“The variety has always made the show special,” asserts Pinfield. “It stayed true to what was great about free-form radio in the ’60s and ’70s. It was open season, and anybody who was driving their own boat was welcome. It could be hard rock or some laidback, folky thing. The bands may be huge or completely unknown. We usually want to give the underdog a shot.”

Having said that , there’s not quite as much room on “120 Minutes” as there used to be.

On a typical show in 1988, twenty to 25 videos would be aired. “120 Minutes with Matt Pinfield” cuts the anticipated number of clips down to twelve to fourteen. The remainder of the time is filled up with interviews, which are busy with jump cuts and even occasional impertinent flash animations. A program already noted for its speed has picked up speed.

“You still see the full videos,” announces Pinfield. “The show hasn’t lost the music info or the great stories from bands. I am keen on the pacing because it keeps things exciting.”

EXILE FROM WRXP

The resurrection of “120 Minutes” comes at a hard moment for Pinfield.

The deejay had been the first on-air personality at WRXP 101.9, the radio station that brought the choice rock format back to the New York urban area.

Early this summer, WRXP was sold to an out-of-town radio multinational that instantly converted the station to a talk format.

All of the station’s rock deejays were given their walking papers.

“It’s extremely disappointing,” announces Pinfield, “and I know our listeners are bummed out now that they don’t have a radio station to hear new artists. Still, those three years at RXP were wonderful, and I’m grateful for them. These things occur in the radio business.”

Pinfield insists that the sale and conversion of WRXP had very little to do with sales or ratings. For the veejay, the success of RXP, however fleeting, demonstrated that an alternative rock station can work in New York City.

“What I am looking for is that someone else with a signal will see our ratings, and decide to move into the market with a new rock station,” claims Pinfield. “I’m ready to go. I’ll be waiting for that call” as reported tagza.com.

The humble alarm clock has certainly come a ways from being your average awakening tool nowadays, the aggravating din of metal clanging against one another is a thing of the past. Your ears instead will be greeted by your favorite ringtone, an MP3 file of your choice, or for the connected model, what about a Web list of radio stations with your favorite shock jock digitally playing tunes in your bedroom?

That is what the Altaz Web Clock Radio offers, and I was able to spend some time with it. One thing I am able to say though if you’re ever going to get to work on time, it is best not to switch alarm clocks overnight like me, possibilities are, you might not even awake to be on time for work, as your ears have yet to be conditioned to the new sounds. Read on about the Altaz Web Clock Radio hands-on after the jump.

But I digress. Just how did I this new gadget in the bedroom? Well, it is hard to recommend it as a “must buy”, even though it would make for a fascinating knick-knack to have. I might suppose if you know of any present day luddites, getting this might be a way to warm up their toes to the electronics revolution.

Seriously, your smartphone ought to be in a position to do what Altaz’s offering does with the right app, and much more, but if you are the type who would prefer to leave particular functions for dedicated devices, then it could be worthwhile.

With a 3.5″ touchscreen display at 320 x 240 resolution, it is not going to win any awards for being the finest looking screen around, even though it does its job pretty well. Other hardware specs include MP3 playback capacity, an SD memory storage slot, 128MB of built in memory, a mini USB input, a 1-watt speaker, a JPEG viewer and Wi-Fi connectivity to get you connected.

Audio quality is decent even though it isn’t recommended to sleep with this alarm clock too a great distance from your bed, otherwise a pillow covering your head may drown the sound out during those drowsy mornings, resulting in you missing a very important appointment or perhaps worse, getting the sack for being late for the umpteenth time.

You’ll be able to use the touchscreen display to manipulate all of the settings within, and occasionally the clock seems to hang but if you wait long enough (more than 5 minutes for me), the software didn’t freeze, it just took a really, truly long time to sort things out, particularly when you are searching for particular radio stations.

Setting up a list of radio station presets is painless, and you can also opt to do it when the Altaz Net Clock Radio is connected to a PC through USB if you find the touchscreen a wee bit hard to use.

In fact inputting characters via the touchscreen display was an intensely exasperating experience for me no thanks to the virtual keyboard that appeared to be less than provoking. You’d be better off hooking it up to a PC and getting the job done via a genuine keyboard as an alternative.

Setting up the Wi-Fi connection can also be quite the frustrating experience entering your WPA key incorrectly would need you to remove the whole string rather than the offending personality, which should not occur in this present time.

Except for that, there is not any option for you to view your password in plain text as you are entering it to prevent mistakes, so practice is essential here. Hopefully a future firmware update will fix these issues. On the brighter side, firmware updates give the clock a longer shelf life in your home, don’t you think so?

Apart from the touchscreen display, there is the play / pause button, volume control and power button at the side which are just about self-explanatory. A big snooze button at the top does its job well,

The alarm clock has 2 default audio files to get you out of bed a crowing rooster, and that of chirping birds. Of course, you can always upload your own MP3 files to replace those, and for people who like to wake up to a morning Net radio station talk show, you are able to do that also.

I really let the Altaz Web Clock Radio run for roughly four hours straight, being connected to my favorite Net radio station, and playing it back at 50% volume loudness. This is a good return, but I would like to recommend you simply leave it connected into a power outlet.

The listed price of $99.99 makes it tough for me to endorse it to any person, but if your want to dip your toes into the world of Net alarm clocks and digital photograph frames, there might be better methods to begin. A little bit too late to the game, I have got to say. Hopefully a future version (if ever) from Altaz will be in a position to address all of its issues and make good then, writes tagza.com.