SBS dumps VICELAND branding as broadcaster revives SBS 2 name after a decade
SBS will officially scrap the SBS VICELAND brand later this year, with the broadcaster confirming its secondary television channel will revert to the SBS 2 name from August 21, 2026.
The decision ends the broadcaster’s nearly 10-year association with the once-expansive global Vice Media television brand, which has steadily retreated from international linear broadcasting markets following financial turmoil and the company’s eventual bankruptcy in 2023.
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While the branding overhaul has now been confirmed, SBS has not revealed whether the relaunch will include broader programming, commissioning or scheduling changes.
The move represents the latest chapter in a channel that has undergone repeated reinvention attempts since first launching as SBS TWO on June 1, 2009.
Originally conceived as a digital-only companion service to the main SBS channel, the station replaced the former SBS World News Channel and was designed to attract younger audiences with alternative entertainment, international sport and niche factual content.
That strategy accelerated dramatically in 2013 when the broadcaster rebranded the service as SBS 2, adopting what SBS at the time described as a more “bold and provocative” identity targeting viewers aged between 16 and 39.
But the channel’s biggest transformation came on November 15, 2016, when SBS 2 officially became SBS VICELAND under a partnership agreement with Vice Media.
The deal arrived during the peak of Vice’s global expansion ambitions.
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Internationally, Vice was aggressively launching youth-focused television channels under the Viceland banner across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and New Zealand, positioning itself as an edgy alternative to traditional television networks.
In Australia, however, the arrangement was structurally different from overseas markets.
While the channel adopted the internationally recognised Viceland branding, ownership and operational control remained entirely with SBS. The broadcaster retained editorial authority and continued operating under the SBS Code of Practice, even while importing Vice documentaries, lifestyle programming and youth-oriented factual content.
The arrangement allowed SBS to fuse Vice’s raw counter-culture aesthetic with its own multicultural charter obligations.
The result was a distinctly Australian hybrid channel unlike anything else in the local free-to-air market.
While commercial multichannels increasingly became dominated by sitcom repeats, archive reality franchises and overflow programming, SBS VICELAND carved out a reputation for combining international news, subculture documentaries, foreign-language content and alternative current affairs.
Programs like The Feed became central to SBS VICELAND’s identity, blending satire, investigative journalism and internet culture into a youth-focused current affairs format rarely seen elsewhere on Australian television. (image – SBS)
Programs including the sadly short-lived The Feed became synonymous with the channel’s identity, blending satire, investigative journalism and internet culture reporting in a format rarely attempted elsewhere on Australian television.
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The channel also maintained SBS’s unique World Watch programming blocks, airing news bulletins sourced directly from broadcasters across Europe, Asia and Africa in their original languages.
At various points, the schedule also mixed cult international hits, anime, cycling coverage, UEFA football and provocative factual series including Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia.
The service was also one of the first multi-channels to be upgraded to High Definition when SBS arged younger audiences increasingly expected higher-quality presentation for documentary and cinematic programming.
But over recent years, the relevance of the Viceland branding itself has increasingly come into question.
Globally, the television arm of Vice Media has dramatically contracted.
The original Viceland channel in the United Kingdom closed in 2020, while operations in France, Belgium and The Netherlands were progressively shut down as the company abandoned expensive linear television distribution deals in favour of streaming partnerships and digital platforms.
In many markets, the Viceland brand disappeared entirely, replaced by Vice TV or folded into FAST streaming channels and online distribution hubs.
Australia ultimately became one of the final remaining linear television services still carrying the Viceland name.
Media analyst Dan Barrett, writing in his excellent Always Be Watching Substack newsletter on Monday, openly questioned why the branding has survived for so long.
“ a youth skewing SBS VICELAND channel (is it the last remaining VICELAND channel in the world? I’m not sure why SBS hasn’t rebranded it… the volume of VICE content on there has been pretty limited for years),”
Barrett also argued the broader role of linear secondary entertainment channels was becoming increasingly difficult to justify in a streaming-dominated environment.
“Most of the SBS VICELAND service is also filler that could very easily be combined with ABC Entertains without missing a beat. Relevant first-run content barely exists on either in prime time hours.
I’d also challenge the idea that Australia is well-served by having linear general-entertainment channels at all. Get rid entirely of ABC Entertains and SBS VICELAND – acquire that youth-focused content, but save some on transmission costs and keep the shows for on demand audiences”
Despite those concerns, SBS VICELAND has remained one of the more distinctive multichannels in Australian broadcasting because of its unusual mix of public-service obligations and youth-oriented presentation.
Unlike the privately operated overseas Viceland services that struggled commercially, the Australian version benefited from public funding and free-to-air distribution, insulating it from many of the financial pressures that crippled Vice’s international television ambitions.
Whether the return to the SBS 2 name signals a broader editorial reset for the broadcaster remains unclear.
SBS has yet to indicate whether the channel will move away from its youth-skewing strategy, alter its commissioning focus, or reposition itself alongside the broadcaster’s growing streaming ambitions through SBS On Demand.
For now, the move appears primarily designed to retire a global media brand whose influence on the Australian service has steadily diminished.
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