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The Executive Director of the ECAJ, Peter Wertheim, and the CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Vic Alhadeff have met with Dirk Anthony, Director of Audio and Language Content at SBS, and Thang Ngo, SBS Strategy and Planning Manager, to discuss the proposed new criteria for SBS Radio programming.  

“We were assured that there has never been an underlying agenda to cut back on or eliminate free-to-air Jewish radio programs”, Wertheim said.  “The purpose of the new criteria is to cater better for newly arrived minority communities but without sacrificing radio programs for significant cultural and ethnic groups such as the Jewish community.  SBS recognizes that its Charter requires it to provide radio programs for multicultural communities, even though our community is atypical inasmuch as it is not identified with only one non-English language”.

Wertheim said that he and Alhadeff were satisfied with the outcome of the meeting.  “SBS management has said that they want to work with us to ensure that communities such as ours will continue to be catered for as in the past”.

“This issue is of deep concern to the community and we are pleased to see that it appears to be developing in the right direction”, Alhadeff added.“The meeting with SBS was productive and forward-looking, and we are confident of a positive outcome.”