Australia is a multicultural nation but even it’s multicultural broadcaster fails to support the nation’s fading diverse ethnic communities.

SBS radio does a wonderful job, day-time SBS Television broadcasts much loved news programs from around the world, but prime time SBS does not provide adequate multi-lingual programming.

The SBS board itself has faced criticism regarding their lack of diversity so as a participant of a non-English, non-Anglo community I thought I could offer my help to fix their Prime Time television problem in a series of short articles.

Here’s one idea for consideration.

Saturday Night (World Music) Fever

Australia has hundreds of ethnic community halls that each week entertain their members with live music and dance.

Friday or Saturday nights on SBS could broadcast live from either a sound stage or one of these halls to showcase music and dance from a single, or multiple regions.

The show would present multi-lingual performances and could be tied together by an English host.

The show would promote local ethnic performers (many of whom are volunteers) and their groups, encourage greater participation, promote multi-language entertainment and could help build bridges between different music styles and communities.

Over thousands of years cultural exchange has created many links between supposed ‘bad neighbours’. Greeks and Turks share music and I’m inclined to this phenomenon is repeated the world over.

‘Stin Ygeia Mas’ is a three hour Greek Music program that could easily be replicated for a multi-lingual audience on the cheap in Australia.

Pick a talented and knowledgeable presenter, enage local communities and encourage the Australian production of non-English content.

Thousands of participants across Australia are already producing this content for free. SBS help them to help you!