SBS ESTABLISHES CREATIVE SUMMIT TO GENERATE NEW PROGRAMMING CONCEPTS AND FUEL LOCAL PRODUCTIONS

Independent Production Teams Invited To Participate In Brain Station

AMSTERDAM, April 14, 2003 - Recognizing a growing need for new television program ideas as well as the inefficiencies of traditional program development models, SBS Broadcasting, S.A. (NASDAQ: SBTV; Amsterdam Stock Exchange (AEX): SBS) has launched a unique creative incubation event, the SBS Brain Station. The innovative event creates a 'melting pot environment for small and independent production companies, commercial film makers, advertising agencies, art schools and other creative individuals in an effort for SBS to nurture and facilitate idea sharing with an eye towards developing new and intriguing television programs. The SBS Brain Station concept was developed by Morten Aass, managing director of SBS TV Norge and officially unveiled at this years MIP-TV television market.

The television business is short on good ideas and new creative blood," explains Aass. And as advertising revenue decreases, so do the budgets for program development. We wanted to establish a model for fostering creative idea sharing that would entice new talent to the medium without all of the hurdles traditionally associated with television programming development. Weve also incorporated a competitive element into the Brain Station concept to reward the most intriguing ideas. The top three ideas flushed out during the Brain Station gathering will earn development contracts and a check for 10,000 Euro for the teams that devised them. And SBS has three new shows in development for its stations."

As envisioned by Aass, representatives from TV Norge, TVDanmark and Kanal 5 in Sweden each invited six to eight Creator teams from the different creative sectors in their territory to participate in the SBS Brain Station. The teams, comprised of three people each, prepared a minimum of 6 and maximum of 12 television program ideas.    Although the teams were free to select the genres for their ideas, the teams were told that ideas that can be implemented as Pan-Scandinavian productions were very much sought after, so each team was asked to develop at least one Pan-Scandinavian concept. The teams then met with the SBS station representative from their territory to hone their ideas into the three most viable.

Traveling to the first SBS Brain Station in Oslo, Norway from 28 February through 2 March, the teams refined and improved their concepts after seeing all of the teams present all of their ideas. Over the weekend, Creative Nurses (programming people from the SBS stations) answered questions, advised, consulted and cajoled the teams as they prepared their concept presentations for the SBS organizers, who then selected 12 finalist concepts.

These 12 finalist concepts were then presented to all participants, station representatives, the SBS organizing committee and other SBS Broadcasting representatives. From this group of 12 ideas, four winning concepts were selected and awarded both 20,000 Euros and development contracts from the station in their home market. The end result is that four new format ideas, two Danish and two Swedish, will become a pilot and/or series produced for the worldwide television marketplace as well as broadcast on the local SBS station. Additionally, 10 ideas forged through the SBS Brain Station are being developed on a national level.

The event was deemed so successful by SBS Broadcasting organizers that the company is now exploring opportunities for initiating similar Brain Station events in other territories throughout Europe. Concludes Aass, The first Brain Station was a tremendous creative success, yielding a number of winning ideas which SBS has worldwide rights to and our three Nordic stations picked up more potential show ideas, which has proven this to be a very productive exercise that will ultimately evolve into a valuable franchise opportunity."

SBS is a European commercial television and radio broadcasting company with operations in Western and Central Europe. Countries where SBS currently has broadcasting assets include: Belgium (Flanders), Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania and Sweden.
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