World Watch

World Watch is a program on SBS One and SBS Two 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.

History

The WorldWatch program began in August 1993 with news bulletins from People's Republic of China, United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Republic of China and Russia.

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, and was seen as deeply offensive and seen as propaganda to many Vietnamese-Australians who fled after the Vietnam War.^[1] It was quickly removed on 17 October.^[2]

The resulting backlash on the decision to air the program has seen SBS air disclaimers on all of its World Watch programs that distance the broadcaster from the editorial content of each bulletin.

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

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

News 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 China, Chile, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malta, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

The programs are usually broadcast unedited. However, SBS does edit programs under "exceptional circumstances"^[3] 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.

If SBS does not receive the program on time, it will replace the program with its Weatherwatch program.^[4]

Bulletins currently airing

Daily on SBS One

Repeated on SBS Two, except the English bulletins

• Arabic – Dubai TV
• Cantonese – TVB
• English - PBS NewsHour, DW-TV and Al Jazeera
• Filipino – ABS-CBN
• French – France 2
• German – DW-TV
• Greek – CyBC (formerly ERT and ANT1)
• Hindi – NDTV
• Italian – RAI
• Japanese – NHK
• Korean – YTN
• Mandarin – China Central Television
• Spanish – RTVE
• Russian – NTV Russia
• Turkish – TRT

Daily on SBS Two

• Croatian - HRT
• Czech - ČT
• Dutch – BVN (Weekly on SBS One)
• Indonesian – TVRI
• Malaysian – RTM TV1
• Macedonian - MRT
• Maltese – PBS
• Polish – Polsat (Weekly on SBS One)
• Portuguese – RTP Portugal (Weekly on SBS One)
• Serbian – RTS

Weekly Programs

• Spanish – TVN Chile (Listed as "Latin American News")
• Hungarian – Duna TV
• Urdu – PTV Pakistan

Former Bulletins

• Vietnamese - VTV4

References

External links

• Official Site for SBS World News
• World Watch on SBS World News Australia