Last week many people voiced their opinion saying they want Kostakidis to return to SBS, to read the nightly News. We know. The Save Our SBS web site (www.SaveOurSBS.org) has been inundated with comments to that effect.
In wondering why so many people have objected to Australia’s best newsreader not being on the small box we need to understand that people are fed up with the commercialisation at SBS.
The community upset triggered by the Kostakidis departure is more than just the absence of the newsreader herself.
Over a long period Kostakidis had been outspoken about the direction that SBS was heading in, the commercialisation of SBS, the ads interrupting programs and the dumbing down of SBS. All these are at the heart of the issue.
When ex Kiwi and Managing Director of SBS Shaun Brown and the SBS Board decided to commercialise SBS, they needed to keep things “in house”. SBS attempted to gag staff and especially the outspoken Kostakidis, to prevent her from publicly telling the wider community about the poison of commercialisation within SBS. However when SBS began interrupting programs for ads, it was not just Kostakidis who felt threatened but the wider community as well. The world’s first multicultural, public broadcaster, funded from our taxes, has now been reduced to a mere memory of the past.
Until the formation of Save Our SBS, there was nowhere for people voice their concern. Judging by the flood of additional signatories received this past week at www.SaveOurSBS.org to the six week old, pre-Kostakidis, “No Ads on SBS” petition, it is clear to us that the loss of Kostakidis is symbolic of the trashing, the commercialisation of SBS that Brown and the Board are obsessed about.
More comments about Mary Kostakidis at https://saveoursbs.org/archives/119
Kostakidis: Brown & SBS Board Commercialisation Obsession
Last week many people voiced their opinion saying they want Kostakidis to return to SBS, to read the nightly News. We know. The Save Our SBS web site (www.SaveOurSBS.org) has been inundated with comments to that effect.
In wondering why so many people have objected to Australia’s best newsreader not being on the small box we need to understand that people are fed up with the commercialisation at SBS.
The community upset triggered by the Kostakidis departure is more than just the absence of the newsreader herself.
Over a long period Kostakidis had been outspoken about the direction that SBS was heading in, the commercialisation of SBS, the ads interrupting programs and the dumbing down of SBS. All these are at the heart of the issue.
When ex Kiwi and Managing Director of SBS Shaun Brown and the SBS Board decided to commercialise SBS, they needed to keep things “in house”. SBS attempted to gag staff and especially the outspoken Kostakidis, to prevent her from publicly telling the wider community about the poison of commercialisation within SBS. However when SBS began interrupting programs for ads, it was not just Kostakidis who felt threatened but the wider community as well. The world’s first multicultural, public broadcaster, funded from our taxes, has now been reduced to a mere memory of the past.
Until the formation of Save Our SBS, there was nowhere for people voice their concern. Judging by the flood of additional signatories received this past week at www.SaveOurSBS.org to the six week old, pre-Kostakidis, “No Ads on SBS” petition, it is clear to us that the loss of Kostakidis is symbolic of the trashing, the commercialisation of SBS that Brown and the Board are obsessed about.
More comments about Mary Kostakidis at https://saveoursbs.org/archives/119