{"id":476753,"date":"2026-02-13T06:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476753\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T06:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:25:12","slug":"sbs-spent-over-500k-on-2026-upfronts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476753\/","title":{"rendered":"SBS spent over $500k on 2026 upfronts"},"content":{"rendered":"

SBS spent over $750,000 on events during the first nine months of 2025, including over $500,000 on its upfront presentations to media and potential advertisers.<\/p>\n

Representatives from the Special Broadcast Service were questioned via video conference in Senate estimates this week, where Victorian Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson grilled the executives about their lavish event spending.<\/p>\n

SBS held 19 functions between the start of 2025 and September 25. The broadcaster spent $768,000 in total on these functions, which Henderson noted \u201cis a substantial amount of money, particularly when you are funded by the taxpayer\u201d, although she conceded SBS also raises \u201csome commercial revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most costly of these was the September 3 Sydney upfront event<\/a> \u2014 one of several upfronts in different states \u2014 where the broadcaster presented its slate of 2026 programming to potential advertisers and media. This event cost $361,110.<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

AV and production at the Sydney upfront was $207,000, while the costs of hiring the Hordern Pavilion for the night were $46,000.<\/p>\n

The remaining four upfronts \u2014 in Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth \u2014 were more modestly priced, at $177,567 for the four, a little over $44,000 each.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shaun Micallef and Courtney Act made for a fun double act at SBS\u2019s Sydney upfront<\/p>\n

SBS is roughly two-thirds government funded \u2014 receiving $350m in government funding in the last financial year \u2014 with the remaning funding coming from its commercial operations. Last year, Mumbrella called for greater transparency<\/a> around its audience numbers.<\/p>\n

The Tour De-SBS function was also a costly endeavour. As acting managing director Jane Palfreyman explained, this event is held \u201cto engage the advertising community \u2026 to better understand the Tour De France being a tent pole piece of content in our schedule, and one that generates substantial advertising revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

This event cost (\u201cin general terms\u201d as Henderson notes) $18,000 for venue hire, $21,000 for catering, $19,000 for AV and production, $13,000 for \u201cactivities\u201d, $4,300 for an MC, $525 for a photographer and $20,000 for an agency fee, which Palfreyman said was for \u201cthe assistance of a company to help organise and orchestrate that event.\u201d She estimated this event was attended by around 150 people.<\/p>\n

Also highlighted during the senate estimates was a CMO dinner for \u201caround 25-30 people\u201d at Chez Beckett\u2019s in Chippendale, in Sydney, which cost $10,505; and four Eurovision parties across Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth at a total cost of $43,404.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sarah Henderson is not impressed by the SBS\u2019s spending<\/p>\n

Although Henderson was forensic in her detail when it came to SBS\u2019s function costings, she appeared to be unaware that James Taylor had stepped down from the MD role in late 2025, asking \u201cwhy the managing director is not appearing this evening?\u201d<\/p>\n

This lead to an awkward exchange where Palfreyman informed the senator she was actually acting managing director, to which Henderson asked about the status of the recruiting process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe board\u2019s undertaking an extensive recruitment process as we speak, and I expect we\u2019ll have an update in the coming weeks and months,\u201d Palfreyman responded. When asked whether she is an applicant, Palfreyman simply said, \u201cSenator, thank you for your interest in the process. We all look forward to the outcome of the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Henderson took that to mean \u201cyou are applying to keep the job\u201d, Palfreyman responded: \u201cYeah, you can infer that from my comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

SBS bosses appeared via video conference, for less than 30 minutes<\/p>\n

The grilling then ended, with the SBS video call over within half an hour. This pales in comparison to the three hours senators spent questioning ABC executives, in person.<\/p>\n

Both sittings lasted for roughly double the time scheduled, with the SBS originally expected to take just 15 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SBS spent over $750,000 on events during the first nine months of 2025, including over $500,000 on its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,242724,181790,48310,427,72409],"class_list":{"0":"post-476753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jane-palfreyman","12":"tag-sarah-henderson","13":"tag-sbs","14":"tag-tv","15":"tag-upfronts"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}