2025 SBS Upfronts | SBS celebrates 50 years with bold 2025 line-up

2025 SBS Upfronts | SBS celebrates 50 years with bold 2025 line-up – SBS has today revealed a bold and original content line-up with distinctive stories Australians won’t see anywhere else. In 2025, the network celebrates 50 years of connecting the country through storytelling that informs, inspires, entertains and authentically reflects contemporary Australia.

Managing Director of SBS, James Taylor said:

“Over five decades, SBS has evolved from two multilingual radio stations to one of the world’s most distinctive multiplatform broadcasters. Within an ever more competitive landscape, SBS stands alone with its long history of truly representing Australia. As SBS prepares to mark this 50^th milestone next year and look to the next 50, we will continue to lead the way in being a media network for all Australians – through storytelling that explores and reflects contemporary Australia, through digital innovation, and through our commitment to sustainability.”

SBS Director of Television, Kathryn Fink said:

“SBS has continued to redefine entertainment with bold, human stories that connect us all. Our success is underpinned by our truly unique offering, with SBS On Demand the linchpin of our network. In 2025, our content slate will inform and entertain, with landmark documentaries including 2.6 Seconds, Robodebt and The Idea of Australia with Rachel Griffiths, and returning hits like Alone Australia, The Handmaid’s Tale and Rogue Heroes. SBS will continue to go places other networks won’t, to ignite important conversations that challenge, move and inspire all Australians.”

SBS Director of Indigenous Content, Tanya Denning-Orman said:

“As a network, SBS will continue to lead the way in First Nations storytelling, with NITV at the heart of our commitment to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a vital voice in the media. We have a powerful line-up of Blak excellence coming in 2025, and from today, the best of First Nations storytelling has a dedicated streaming destination with the launch of our new SBS On Demand hub, NITV Muy Ngulayg. We thank the Western Torres Strait communities for their input and feedback on the use of this term which means inner knowledge, as we invite all Australians to learn and be inspired by stories from the world’s oldest storytellers.”

In 2025, SBS continues to break new ground with landmark documentaries that challenge, inform and entertain. Presented by Rachel Griffiths, The Idea of Australia is a bold and provocative four-part series that explores the myths that bind Australia and the events and people that have shaped our democracy, place in the world, cultural identity and the relationship between non-Indigenous and First Nations peoples.

Presented by SBS and NITV, 2.6 Seconds, examines the death of Kumanjayi Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri and Luritja teenager shot three times by a police officer at close range in his home community of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. The series looks at the impact of those fatal 2.6 seconds on families, communities and race relations in this country.

ROBODEBT (working title) will use a combination of hard-nosed factual and high-end drama to shine a much-needed spotlight on an unprecedented chapter in recent Australian history, while Jacki Weaver presents Australia: An Unofficial History, an insightful, broad, and playful series that cracks open a forgotten vault of Australian films to explore the social and political change of the ‘70s.

The record-breaking smash hit survival series Alone Australia returns for a third season.

This time, 10 survivalists will be dropped into the cold and rugged landscape of The West Coast Ranges, Tasmania, lutruwita. In this new location the 10 participants face extreme flooding, an abundance of wildlife and deep personal revelations.

The harsh conditions ignite never-before-seen innovation and survival skills, forcing the human spirit to its very limit. With no camera crews they must try to survive by their own wits and ingenuity to be the last person standing and take home $250,000.

Inspired by the hugely successful Great Australian Walks, Great Australian Road Trips pairs actress Claudia Karvan with comedian Steph Tisdell in one car and TV presenter Melissa Leong with comedian Nazeem Hussain in another to reveal untold Australian stories one pit stop at a time.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

For 15 years, popular genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? has surprised and delighted audiences with secrets from the past. In 2025, Claudia Karvan, Mark Coles Smith and Marc Fennell are among the next line-up of iconic Australians. Marc Fennell will also present an eye-opening documentary series The Secret DNA of Us that will DNA test four Australian towns to reveal the hidden history of our nation and unknown connections that unite us.

SBS curates the best dramas from across the globe.

In 2025, the network will see the return of some of its biggest hits including the final season of ratings juggernaut The Handmaid’s Tale, the second season of the adrenaline-fuelled Rogue Heroes and critically acclaimed drama Blue Lights.

The network has also acquired Playing Nice,based on the J.P. Delaney book of the same name, starring James Norton and Niamh Algar as a couple who face a horrifying dilemma amid a hospital mix-up and Smilla’s Sense of Snow,an epic, genre-bending action thriller based on the bestselling novel by Peter Høeg. Set in a near future, surveillance state, the multi-layered story centres on Smilla Jaspersen, a fascinating and unique heroine living in Copenhagen.

SBS is proud to continue elevating new and under-represented voices in front of and behind the camera and is excited to premiere three new Australian drama series in 2025 through its successful Digital Originals initiative with Screen Australia. From the biting and upbeat story of Warm Props filmedin Broome, to Pasifika-led series Moni set in Western Sydney, to muttonbirding season in Tasmania in Moonbird a co-production with the first-ever Tasmanian Aboriginal screen production company.

After a one-off debut earlier this year, NITV’s boldest and Blak-est comedy entertainment show Big Backyard Quiz is back for a whole series of sizzling episodes.

NITV will also deliver its take on sport documentary with Skin in the Game, as NRLW commentator, Marlee Silva, takes a personal look at the sport of rugby league. Following the success of all access ob-doc series, Our Law, new series Our Medicine shines an important light on First Nations professionals taking back control of Indigenous health.

New children’s series Dreaming Big takes an intimate look into the lives of gifted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youths on the cusp of becoming the nation’s next generation of sports stars. NITV will also continue to curate a unique collection of locally and globally acquired programs, including Earth Oven where Māori actor Temuera Morrison heads off on a globe-trotting adventure to visit communities and uncover how earth ovens shaped their cultures.

Today, NITV has also launched a dedicated hub on SBS On Demand for every Australian to explore the best First Nations storytelling from here and around the world.

Named NITV Muy Ngulayg – which in the Kala KawawYa language of the Western Torres Strait means ‘inner knowledge’ – it is an invitation to all Australians to learn, be entertained and inspired. It’s a new streaming destination for audiences to find all NITV content, and a vibrant collection of films, documentaries and series that will illuminate inner knowledge, traditional culture and lore.

In 2025, SBS and SBS Food remain the leading destinations for premium food programming in Australia. The network today revealed the return of SBS’s largest commissioned food series The Cook Up with Adam Liaw,alongside new series Marion Grasby’s Endless Summer (working title), which sees the renowned Australian food creator rediscover what it means to be a second-generation Australian embracing her Thai and Australian heritage through the lens of food, and Memory Bites with Matt Moran where the esteemed chef and restauranteur takes celebrities such as Pia Miranda, Richard Roxburgh, Ross Noble and Danielle Cormack on a trip down memory lane as he recreates special dishes from their pasts.

In an SBS Food and NITV co-commission, Island Echoes with Nornie Bero sees the celebrated chef on a vibrant culinary adventure through the Torres Strait Islands as she reconnects with friends and family.