Next Monday night SBS bids farewell to Top Gear for the final time.
The show drives off to Nine after a ferocious acquisition battle last year that SBS lost due to being outbid.
But the network is keen to remind us it was just one hour of television a week, and that it still has plenty to bring its “six billion stories” theme to life.
This year SBS has the World Cup exclusive, a third series of East West 101, Eurovision in Oslo, more Mad Men, Skins, Inspector Rex, Entourage and Shameless.
Over summer, the public broadcaster has been doing very nicely thankyou. On Monday it took double figures in the ratings. It has been performing with Man Vs Wild on Monday nights. From January 25, new Mythbusters return to the Monday night slot.
Big Love returned to Tuesdays this week, another favourite with the SBS audience. In January, The Fixer, Trawlermen, Monster Moves and the Grierson Winner 2009 Best Documentary Feature Thriller in Manila are also showing.
Coming soon are the documentary series Love of Money, James May’s Big Ideas, James May’s Toy Stories and new Danish crime drama The Killing.
In March get ready for the long-awaited second season of Wilfred, documentary series Iran and the West, Italian Food Safari, a second series of Costa’s Garden Odyssey, Disabled Body Saliors and series 2 of Richard Hammond’s Engineering Connections. April begins Series 5 & 6 of Who Do You Think You Are?, a new series of Paul Fenech’s Swift & Shift Couriers, plus 80 Rituals Around the World, Jobs for Junkies, and Inside Nature’s Giants.
Later in the year it will bring Manson, Life Begins, Comedy School and season 2 of The Family.