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Updated September 1, 2026 \u2014 3:48pm,first published 1:30pm<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Ray Martin will come face to face with an AI-driven deep fake version of himself in a bid to understand the threats and opportunities posed by the rise of artificial intelligence in Ray Martin is Misinformed.<\/p>\n The documentary is one of the highlights of the slate unveiled in SBS\u2019 annual upfront presentation \u2014 a showcase of its most eye-catching (and ad-friendly) content of the year ahead \u2014 in Sydney on Tuesday.<\/p>\n The broadcaster also announced that it has secured the rights to the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which will be staged in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. This follows the record-breaking ratings for this year\u2019s tournament, which was watched, the network claims, by 18 million Australians.<\/p>\n \u201cFor almost 50 years, SBS has been the spiritual home of the world game,\u201d said managing director Jane Palfreyman. \u201cFootball has always reflected the Australia we are, and the Australia we aspire to be, a nation shaped by many cultures, communities, and stories. That\u2019s why the FIFA World Cup on SBS matters. Because when SBS is doing its job well, Australia sees itself a little more clearly. \u2029I can\u2019t think of a time when that has mattered more.\u201d<\/p>\n Joseph Maxwell, the network\u2019s head of factual, said that in the Ray Martin-fronted documentary \u201cwe actually create Ray-I, an AI version of Ray, and by the end of the show you cannot tell who\u2019s Ray and who\u2019s Ray-I.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty unsettling for Ray at certain moments. The model grows; it starts off not sounding like him and by the end, you feel you\u2019re in the room with two Rays. It\u2019s got his voice, it\u2019s got his pauses. They say AI can\u2019t have a sense of humour, but it certainly picks up some of his tone and playfulness by the end.\u201d<\/p>\n The show is not merely an exercise in what\u2019s possible, Maxwell adds. It\u2019s a meditation on what the fact it is possible means \u2013 especially for the notion of truth in reporting. \u201cRay\u2019s entire world has been journalism, and now journalism is under threat like it\u2019s never been before. And Ray-I in some ways represents that threat. But in some ways it represents a solution, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article Maxwell highlighted a number of other notable documentaries in the slate, including Dan Goldberg<\/a>\u2019s Bondi, a \u201cminute by minute\u201d account of the events of December 14, 2025 from the perspective of those who were there.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has got no narration; it\u2019s all told by the people who were there,\u201d says Maxwell. \u201cAnd it paints a broader portrait of antisemitism, a broader portrait of social cohesion, a broader portrait of multicultural Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly confronting is 2.6 Seconds, a four-part documentary series about the killing of Kumanjayi Walker<\/a> by Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe in 2019. Marking the directorial debut of Darren Dale, co-founder of production powerhouse Blackfella Films, the series has all the marks, Maxwell says, of being a \u201cchannel-defining\u201d commission.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a proper, landmark, premium true-crime show that reveals something really fascinating about Australia, doesn\u2019t tell you what to think, but allows you to explore the evidence, explore the story,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think we will be holding this up as the kind of show that only SBS does \u2013 really distinctive, really bold and absolutely gripping.\u201d<\/p>\n Alone Australia <\/a>will be back, and again the contestants will have to try to survive in the Arctic Circle<\/a>. It will be in a different location to the season currently airing, and they\u2019ll be going in later, so the harsh winter conditions will begin to bite earlier. But the biggest change will be that this time they\u2019re allowed to hunt.<\/p>\n The Sami people\u2019s sacred animals will not be on the menu, though. \u201cThere will be no reindeer harmed in the making of this show, I guarantee you that,\u201d says Maxwell. \u201cThere are birds they can hunt, there are other animals they can hunt. But I can\u2019t really reveal too much because the cast don\u2019t know the details yet.\u201d<\/p>\n If Alone is all about people who opt to sleep rough in pursuit of a big cash prize, Homeless 300 will look at the plight of those who have no choice in the matter.<\/p>\n Presented by Samuel Johnson, the show takes its name from the fact that 300 Australians are turned away from homeless shelters each night. And it\u2019s a subject that resonates deeply with the Gold Logie-winning actor.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen a presenter so angered by the society in which we live,\u201d says Maxwell. \u201cHe\u2019s out there looking at this issue, and he\u2019s just absolutely gobsmacked and asks us, \u2018What as a nation can we do, and how did we get to this place?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The three-part series marks a return to the topic SBS explored with Filthy Rich and Homeless back in 2017, but from a fresh angle. \u201cAnd the sad thing is that issue has not changed,\u201d says Maxwell. \u201cThe show is very much looking at solutions as well as the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n If the SBS slate is rich in hard-hitting factual content \u2013 including a series in which Marc Fennell revisits the Hilton Bombing of 1978, and sits down with Evan Pederick, the man who confessed to the act, was jailed for it, but whose testimony was later deemed unreliable \u2013 it is noticeably thin on locally produced scripted content.<\/p>\n The network announced just three commissions for its Digital Originals program, which has previously produced The Tailings and this year\u2019s Logie-winning Homebodies<\/a>.<\/p>\n The new series are adventure drama Mangrove Mansion, supernatural First Nations story Pretty Deadly and a social media comedy about feuding friends, Tantrum. But with a combined running time of just three hours, the slate does little to allay concerns about the parlous state of Australian drama and comedy on free-to-air television.<\/p>\n Viewers will be better served with international drama, with espionage drama Legacy of Spies, based on the work of John le Carre and starring Matthew Macfadyen<\/a>, Charlie Hunnam and Hugh Laurie, and new seasons of Belfast cop drama Blue Lights<\/a>, Steven Knight\u2019s Rogue Heroes and Silicon Valley satire The Audacity.<\/a> New dramas include the free-to-air premiere of The Lowdown<\/a>, starring Ethan Hawke as a bookstore owner and exposer of corruption in Tulsa, and the new darkly comic Irish crime drama Tall Tales and Murder, starring Game of Thrones\u2019 Aidan Gillen. <\/p>\n Eurovision returns, of course, and SBS remains the home of cycling on free-to-air television.<\/p>\n Want more TV? We\u2019ve got you.Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Ray](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/532565a982de2c45437ae0d057c6f47d421729de.jpeg\")
Ray Martin will meet an AI version of himself. Will he know which is which?SBS<\/p>\n![\"Australian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788261855_740_f6f63b358694f1895568bdafced18776d59e6e62.jpeg\")
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Samuel Johnson presents Homeless 300, a new documentary series for SBS.<\/p>\n![\"Latin-Australian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788261857_232_9141bc92ee7e46517457f7234b7dfda8bc875562.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Ethan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/f7c4be0892cb795563141fdce1769e297dff3944.jpeg\")
Ethan Hawke plays Lee Raybon, a self-styled \u201ctruthstorian\u201d, in The Lowdown.<\/p>\n