From couch to community to counter: SBS wants to be more than a broadcaster in 2027
SBS moves beyond TV, linking audience insight, OOH, creators, retail and measurement in a broader 2027 commercial pitch.
Beneath the glittering chandeliers of Sydney Town Hall, SBS laid out its pitch for 2027 to a room packed with media buyers, agency leaders and journalists.
The setting felt fitting. Inside a venue steeped in history, the broadcaster was making the case for what comes next.
SBS is making a play to become more than another line on an advertiser’s television plan.
Taken together, the broadcaster’s 2027 Upfront announcements reveal a broader commercial strategy: help marketers understand contemporary Australia, find those audiences, reach them well beyond SBS-owned screens and, crucially, prove what happens next.
Held at Sydney's Town Hall, this year's Upfronts presented an ambitious extension of the SBS sell.
The broadcaster is moving up the funnel into research and audience intelligence, sideways into OOH, creators and retail, and down into spending, sales and visitation measurement. SBS CulturalConnect has a phrase for it: taking an idea “from couch to community to counter”.
It could just as easily describe the entire 2027 commercial pitch.
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Taking the SBS sell beyond SBS
New partnerships with oOh!media, Fabulate and Multicultural Outdoor will allow advertisers to take campaigns that begin with SBS into outdoor, social and retail.
SBS and oOh!media will jointly sell specialised OOH packages around the broadcaster’s 2027 Tour de France coverage. Fabulate gives advertisers access to creators who can extend campaigns onto social platforms, while MCO takes them into multicultural retail environments, supported by SBS CulturalConnect’s audience insights and in-language capabilities.
The interesting part is that SBS doesn't own those channels. Instead, it's giving advertisers a way to start with an SBS property or audience and carry the campaign elsewhere.
SBS News leaves the building
That thinking isn't confined to advertising. SBS News is also heading out of home through a separate partnership with oOh!media.
SBS News content will appear across more than 6,300 lift and lobby screens, as well as airports and universities. The companies estimate it could reach more than 10.6 million people across those environments over 12 months, generating 5.28 billion impressions.
For SBS Director of News & Current Affairs Mandi Wicks, the move is also about putting trusted news in front of people as misinformation becomes harder to avoid.
“We live in an era of increasing misinformation and disinformation,” Wicks said. “As a public service broadcaster, we must be accurate and impartial, and it's important to reach audiences where they are.”
It also ties neatly back to the broader Upfront strategy: SBS isn't waiting for audiences to come to its platforms. Increasingly, it's taking its content to wherever those audiences are.
Proving what happens after the ad
Perhaps the biggest change to the SBS commercial pitch comes through new partnerships with CommBank iQ and HYP.
Through SBS Data Lab, CommBank iQ will bring aggregated, de-identified spending insights into its measurement offering. Pitch iQ provides category and brand insights, Measure iQ connects campaigns with sales outcomes, while Segment iQ gives SBS more than 500 spend-based audience segments. HYP adds website and physical-store visitation measurement.
It shifts from simply reporting who saw an ad. SBS wants advertisers to see whether those audiences visited a store, went online, or spent money afterwards.
Putting some numbers behind the pitch
SBS also brought examples to the Upfront of how that measurement can work.
A project with Coles360 and InfoSum measured Rexona's FIFA sponsorship alongside in-store activity, with SBS reporting a 186% sales uplift from the combined media campaign and retail activation. CommBank iQ was also used across three Tour de France sponsors, including a returning advertiser that recorded a 23% uplift in new customers.
Rethinking who holds the purse strings
SBS is also having another crack at one of the advertising industry's favourite habits: buying 25–54s.
Its new multi-year Booster Economy research estimates Australian parents and grandparents spend more than $140 billion a year supporting younger family members through what SBS calls “everyday inheritances”. That money isn't limited to house deposits. It flows into groceries, restaurants, clothes, holidays, cars and appliances.
SBS Acting Director of Media Sales Lee Fifoot said the findings challenge the industry's traditional view of where spending power sits.
“This intergenerational spending multiplier, driven by older Australians, who are the economy’s super-spenders, is why we believe the traditional 25-54s buying demographic is outdated and in many respects is ignoring a significant proportion of the economy.”
Census data gets a commercial life
SBS will also relaunch its Census Explorer in June 2027, turning the latest Census results into a free planning tool for marketers and agencies.
It will combine 2026 Census data with results from 2021, 2016 and 2011, allowing users to examine changes in communities, languages and demographics. SBS notes that more than half of Australians are first or second-generation migrants, while more than 5.6 million speak a language other than English at home.
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