Shaun Brown has been appointed as SBS’s managing director, filling the vacancy left when Nigel Milan resigned earlier this year.

Speaking at the ACMA Conference on his first official day as Managing Director, Brown has told delegates he believes SBS Radio and TV will prioritise diversity, distinctiveness and audience growth under his leadership.

“We must have an impact and we must engage audiences.”

Given the current volatile situation with terrorism, Brown has told conference delegates he thinks “investing in SBS is an investment in national security” because SBS encourages social harmony and multi-cultural discourse.

Asked to speculate during a panel discussion about the future of public broadcasting structures he said the Heads of Radio and TV will not be important in the SBS organisation in the future, instead “Heads of Content” will become more important.

SBS is planning further advances into new transmission modes and into new content with aims already articulated by Head of Radio Quang Luu to expand into another network using digital radio. Brown also told the conference that the organisation is planning to launch a service called Freeload which will showcase audio and video content created by audiences and uploaded to the SBS website.

Brown has been acting MD since February and was previously SBS’s Head of Television. He worked at the BBC, the ABC and New Zealand television, before joining SBS in 2003.

The ACMA Conference also heard from the former head of SBS, Nigel Milan last night, where, in an after dinner speech, he said leaders of public sector organisations like ACMA and SBS should be better paid.