Monday 15 May 2000
By eBroadcast Staff and agencies.

According to the Sofcom IT News site, a nation of soccer fans are already glued to SBS TV, but Australia’s multicultural broadcaster -- Special Broadcasting Services – is hoping some of that devotion will rub-off online.

SBS has an ambitious plan to launch as many as six speciality Web sites by the end of the year. The first is soccer site theworldgame.com.au, set to go live Monday.

The digital TV plans of both SBS and the ABC, were thwarted by the government this week when it forbid the public broadcasters from setting up extra channels on digital TV spectrum at least until 2005. In contrast, free-to-air channels are permitted to screen sports events on separate digital channels, although they cannot offer entirely new channels.