Statement concerning breach of SBS Code of Practice

Due to an error, SBS aired a 30 second gambling advertisement just before 7am on November 23 during the live broadcast of the Australia v France FIFA World Cup match, in breach of the SBS Code of Practice and relevant live sport gambling advertising regulations. The same error also caused a contravention in relation to a proportion of audience members receiving the live digital stream for that game.  

Following the identification of this issue in relation to the Australia vs France match, further investigations were undertaken which identified three additional individual contraventions which had occurred for the broadcast of FIFA World Cup matches; one impacting a match in the AEST time zone and two instances impacting the NT market only.   

These ad placements were the result of human error, due in part to the extraordinary demands faced by our SBS teams in delivering the FIFA World Cup to Australians. However, this does not excuse the breaches which were inconsistent with our commitment to our audiences.  

We take compliance with our Code and other regulatory obligations very seriously. SBS apologises for these errors and has immediately implemented additional review processes and manual checks to reduce the risk of a similar breach happening again.