When I arrived here in 1989, Australia was still a place where intellectuals and creative artists were not openly regarded as untermenschen, as a feared and thus despised group of potentially un-Australian subversives. It takes all kinds to make a world and in Oz all kinds were allowed to go about their business without too much worry.

As my Australian wife and I installed ourselves in our rented house, the rellies gave us a little portable TV (the kind with rabbit ears) until we got our new lives sorted out. The first night we turned it on, I checked out the channels available and when I got to the SBS, what did I see on the screen but Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. I could not believe my luck.

As an international film buff I had been disappointed by the television fare on at least two continents. The Americans hardly showed any foreign movies, and what they did show was dubbed into English, which, as we all know, robs the film of all integrity. Canada had a French station, but the almost exclusively French movies they showed had no subtitles. In France, foreign movies were shown with subtitles unless, bien sür, they were French, which they mostly were.

But here was the great Kurosawa film with English subtitles -- or more accurately, Australian English subtitles. As time passed, SBS's subtitling expertise became far and away the best in the world. Besides intelligent collaborations between English and native speakers (of which there was an abundance, owing to Australia's successful Multicultural policy), they were the first to replace the traditional white lettering (so often bleaching into invisibility in black and white films) with an always visible yellow.

At the conclusion of the film, David Stratton came on to utter a few brief words and announce next weeks "Cinema Classic". I no longer remember what that film was, but from then until last month, I was a devotee of the SBS, praising it without reservations to friends all over the globe.

Not long after (or maybe it was already happening), Margaret Pomeranz joined Stratton to present films. How quaint it all seems now, in the culturally empty Howard era, to give the viewer a little background information on the film they are about to see. To my knowledge, France was the only other country to do this. It was obviously a work of love for David and Margaret, as there couldn't have been many of us die-hard film buffs during any given screening.

But that was how Australia was then, or so it seemed to me. Everyone was catered too. There was no faddish economic imperative to cut costs to the point where only the lowest common denominator mattered.

The SBS was, to put it quite simply, the most unique television channel in the world. Along with Melbourne's flourishing arts community, I truly believed that I had landed in paradise.

For over two decades the SBS has been unmatched anywhere for the quality of its non-commercial multicultural programming. But this golden age has definitely come to an end. Now, it's just another chump channel, albeit with better programming than the other chump channels.

The writing was on the wall when Stratton and Pomeranz left for the ABC last year. SBS aficionados took a deep breath, knowing that gentle David and feisty Margaret -- both vocal defenders against the war on culture being waged by the philistine Howard Government -- would not make such a move lightly. Their leave-taking constituted a damning vote of no confidence in the SBS.

It didn't take long for the slow death to begin. The great documentary programs and the world news were suddenly being interrupted by commercials. It seemed absurd. Did new management have no idea who their target audience was? But of course the audience has changed. The World Cup, which I thoroughly enjoyed, changed everything. The new demographic of sports-mad viewers, born and bred to view the free-to-air channels and their incessant advertising, were made to order.

Still I hung on. I'll endure commercials on the world-class docos and the best news coverage in the country, I thought, as long as they don't interrupt the movies.

But they have. A few weeks ago the film I was watching (the French-Japanese co-production Fear and Trembling) suddenly faded to nearly five minutes of inane commercials. I can't recall when I have been so stunned. I sat there in disbelief for nearly a half hour before switching the movie off. Like dubbing, commercial breaks are anathema to good films.

So it's over to World Movies for uninterrupted films. But I wonder how long before it starts breaking up films for promos to soften us up for commercials. When that happens I can dispense with television altogether. Thanks to David and Margaret I have hundreds of movies on video to catch up on.

There is really only one show on the SBS that I can't do without. That is Jennie Brockie's Insight. Beyond that, I won't be turning the SBS on again. Now that it has turned into just another vehicle for the huckster world of advertising, there is only the ABC left. But with the exception of David and Margaret's At the Movies and Jennifer Byrne's book show (if it ever returns), both of whose time slots are easily remembered, that channel has been turning out pap for years. Again, see: John Howard.

Well, there you have it. Yet another example of the dumbing down of Australian culture since the events of March,1996.

-- Benoît Balz