WHO: Damian McDermott
ROLE: Senior Producer SBS and Stvdio Channel 132
OFFICE MEASUREMENTS: 3.20 x 2.10m
North Shore offices of SBS surrounded by light industrial – a real mix of clientele in the cafe, hi-vis workwear mixing it with suits.
Damian, in solidarity with our fourth coffee of the day, had a short macchiato  - this meant the majority of the time was spent being very animated with each other, yelling even.
Damian works at SBS TV who also run the cable channel Stvdio, which is a 24 hour art channel showing both internationally bought in content and shorter local content.
He wants the station to be seen as the tv ‘place to go’ to for arts in Australia.
“Live art – its a very broad term isn’t it!”
At the moment he is shooting artist profiles of Australia Council ‘Artstart’ grant recipients and Synapse (Science and Arts) projects
He also was doing festival based stuff “festival tv” which meant broadcasting a show every night of the festival
“If the work is unique and has longevity we can play it”
Are you beholden to ratings? “We are, but the short stuff doesn’t really apply” (The longer overseas stuff are programs like Andre Rieu)