SBS has had its biggest ratings result of the year with the first episode of its three-part reality-cum-documentary series Go Back to Where You Came From.
The show was watched by an average 524,000 people on Tuesday night in the five mainland capitals (the audience measure generally quoted), and was the 23rd most-watched program on the night. Typically, SBS would expect to attract about 300,000 people to its prime-time offerings. A further 206,000 people in regional Australia also watched.
The program has resonated with audiences beyond the small screen, and beyond these shores, too. It was the top-trending topic on Twitter worldwide as it screened, and remained in the top 10 in Australia all day yesterday. There was media interest from the BBC and Korea, and The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune ran long stories on the program.
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The interest in the show was evidence that SBS was fulfilling its charter, managing director Michael Ebeid said. ''Our ambition is to be the catalyst for the nation's conversation about multiculturalism and social inclusion,'' he said.
The series features six Australian-born people with strong views on immigration (only one is in what might be called the ''pro-refugee'' camp) as they retrace in reverse the journeys of asylum seekers who arrive in this country by boat. In last night's second episode, the participants visited Malaysia, where they spent time with 50 Chin refugees from Burma living in a four-bedroom apartment and joined a police raid on illegal immigrant workers.
''We wanted to show the complexity and the human face of this,'' said Peter Newman, head of production and development at SBS, who commissioned the series.
''Go Back really demonstrates the importance of SBS,'' he said. ''We're really the only network that would commission a show like this.''
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