SBS Rains on the Mardi Gras Parade
By Brandon Bentley
In the midst of a wild and fun pride filled weekend, a dark and cloudy storm quickly approached on Saturday evening, as SBS covered the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. Hosted by the best and brightest of Australian queer culture Narelda Jacobs, Courtney Act, Joel Creasey, and Zoë Coombs Marr, SBS’ latest attempt at televising the landmark event was met with more jeers than cheers this year.
Many vviewers were disappointed to see that SBS’ coverage of the event pulled focus from the parade itself, with airtime primarily dedicated to advertising, presenter’s commentary, in-house interviews with celebrities, and a handful of on-location interviews.
Viewers expressed their frustration with the broadcasts’ disregard of many parade floats and the story behind them. Other viewers expressed disappointment that the protesting of the Liberal government parade float was completely cut from the broadcast.
Still not everyone was upset. Some viewers were quite pleased with SBS’ live coverage, singling out the professionalism of Courtney Act, the online broadcast, and the unrestricted coverage of the event worldwide. One commenter notes, “SBS did a great job! Much better than what ABC has done in the past.”
SBS’ Commissioning Editor of Entertainment & Food Josh Martin told the Star Observer, “We’re thrilled with the success of our first ever live broadcast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.” Noting the “400,000” viewers who tuned into the telecast, he continued on by emphasising the importance of the live-cast to the world, stating the removed geo-block on SBS On Demand “allowed fans from all over the world to tune in – which is particularly important for members of the LGBTIQ+ community who live in countries still as risk of persecution for their sexuality.”
Now with the parade’s contract up for renewal by the end of the year, many outlets such as the ABC are vying for a piece of the action. With an overwhelmingly dissatisfied reaction by viewers to this year’s broadcast, SBS may need to step up their game if they hope to keep the party going in 2021.
The telecast of the Mardis Gras on SBS was absosutely deplorable for a live broadcast. There were so many ads and crossovers were terrible, a lot of the floats were missed completely as was explanations of their meaning. The RFS got very little coverage in deed. The commentators were great but SBS needs to pick up their game with live coverage if they are to continue getting support I would have expected a lot more from SBS very disappointing indeed.
I certainly understood the protest against the Liberal Party float, from watching the live broadcast.
If people want lists and lists is the floats being broadcast, they are more than welcome to make their own live broadcasts.
There are those that do and those who complain. If you didn’t like the broadcast, do a better one yourself.
Well I think the coverage was great – just the right amount of banter to keep it light but not dwelling on each float too long. And that is the difficulty of live coverage people – floats come into view and then they go – necessitating a quick appraisal before the next one. There is simply not the time to go into every little detail of every float. A more reasonable complaint may be leveled as to why some of the floats were even there in the first place. L’Oreal….really???
I thought Zoe was fabulous!
Grateful the anti Liberal float was excluded….many gays vote Liberal and detest labor/greens….
You want it- you got it.
If it’s a kick in the guts that you’re not there.
Then that’s the name of the game.
No room for crybaby in the big city.