Current affairs program SBS Dateline returns for season two

SBS Dateline will return for a second season this year at 9.30pm, on Tuesday 1 September. The series is back with fresh documentaries from around the globe, tackling major news events and intimate human stories.

Executive Producer, Georgina Davies, said: “World news and current affairs have never been more important or sought after than right now. Dateline will continue to bring international stories with heart to SBS audiences this season, especially from communities and voices not often seen or heard from.”

The first three episodes travel from the UK, to the Greek Island of Lesbos to Cape Town in South Africa.

1 Sept - ZOO TROUBLES

As Britain began to emerge from COVID-19 lockdown, Reporter Evan Williams travelled to Devon England to meet Australian-born Benjamin Mee, owner of Dartmoor Zoo, an attraction made famous by the film We Bought A Zoo, starring Matt Damon. Dartmoor is a zoo in trouble. Britain’s businesses are reopening, but the government has ordered all zoos remain closed, indefinitely. With no income, Dartmoor and other zoos face permanent shutdown. If they do close, the majority of their animals will have to be euthanised. 

With lives in the balance, Dateline examines an industry in peril while unveiling a conservation crisis that threatens to decimate not just zoo animals, but all of Britain’s native wildlife.

The investigation takes Evan to the offices of Born Free, a charity for re-homing exotic animals; on a rescue with the Wildlife Aid Foundation, a volunteer group saving native animals in distress;  and to the grounds of a 12th century castle, where two farmers may hold the key to saving the zoo industry, and sustaining British farming and conservation in the future. 

8 Sept  - WELCOME TO LESBOS

The Greek island of Lesbos needs summer tourists for its COVID-19 recovery, but it's also home to Europe's biggest refugee camp. Dateline meets the locals torn between welcoming tourists or refugees. 

15 Sept – SCHOOLS UNDER SIEGE

Last year 300 children were shot and killed on the streets of Cape Town due to escalating gang violence. Dateline meets the teachers and students from a primary school caught in the crossfire. 

As part of SBS’s commitment to providing content to communities in their own language, three episodes of Dateline have been added to the subtitled collection on SBS On Demand in Simplified Chinese and Arabic.

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Top image: Goergina Davies