2012 NATIONAL MULTICULTURAL MARKETING AWARDS WINNERS

PopAsia Makes SBS A Hit With Young Asian Australians

Minister for Citizenship and Communities Victor Dominello has announced the winners of the National Multicultural Marketing Awards 2012.

A highly successful push by SBS radio and television into the Asian pop music scene through its PopAsia television, radio, online and social media programs won the Grand Award at a ceremony in Sydney tonight.

The awards, conducted by the Community Relations Commission of NSW since 1990, recognise the achievements of government agencies, business enterprises and community groups in implementing strategies targeting the culturally diverse community.

“PopAsia is uniting a broad range of young Australians from Asia, through music and the English language, something they all have in common,” Mr Dominello said.

“SBS has cleverly drawn second and third generation migrants into the Australian environment through harnessing the great love of pop music that young people of all backgrounds have.

“This is ground-breaking media in a multicultural society,” Mr Dominello said.

PopAsia is made up of 10 hours of live radio each week, 24-hour online streaming, two weekly television programs, a mobile App, a dedicated YouTube channel, and more than 43,000 active online fans. It plays all the hits and covers all the news, interviews, fashion and gossip from the world of Asian pop music.

Chair of the Commission, Stepan Kerkyasharian, said tonight: “The Multicultural Marketing Awards set out originally to encourage public servants to meet the needs of people of non-English speaking backgrounds and to tailor services and information to their language and cultural differences.

“This is exactly what SBS, as a government organisation, has achieved with PopAsia, but, of course, as the multicultural broadcaster this is what they should do and they should be setting the standards.

“Congratulations SBS. In this particular corner of the media world, it appears SBS has met its charter perfectly”, Mr Kerkyasharian said.

PopAsia also won the Advertising and Communication Award.