What do Rachel Griffiths, Jacki Weaver and Claudia Karvan have in common? New jobs at SBS

Rachel Griffiths, Jacki Weaver, and Claudia Karvan headline shiny new programs at SBS as the broadcaster banks on star power for its 2025 programming line-up. Each actress will present a series examining Australian identity, stories and documentaries.

Griffiths will host The Idea of Australia, a four-part series exploring the myths that bind Australia and the events and people that have shaped our democracy, place in the world, cultural identity and the relationship between non-Indigenous and First Nations peoples.

Star power for SBS as Rachel Griffiths, Jacki Weaver and Claudia Karvan join the network for 2025.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

Jacki Weaver presents Australia: An Unofficial History, a playful series that opens a forgotten vault of Australian films exploring the social and political change of the 1970s.

Karvan will host Great Australian Road Trips, joining comedian Steph Tisdell, MasterChef host Melissa Leong and comedian Nazeem Hussain to reveal untold Australian stories, one pit stop at a time.

SBS is also back to doing what it does best: wild places. Alone will return for a third season, sending 10 survival enthusiasts into the inhospitable landscape of The West Coast Range, Tasmania, Lutruwita to compete for $250,000.

Alone has been a standout hit for SBS, with each episode of the second season drawing more than a million Total TV viewers across the week, according to OzTam.

Alone Australia returns to SBS for a third season with contestants battling it out in the Tasmanian wilderness.Credit: SBS

SBS director of television Kathryn Fink said, “We are thrilled with the tremendous audience response to the return of Alone Australia. We expect it to again stand out as a unique property in the Australian TV landscape.”

The network also announced drama-documentary, Robodebt, that digs deep into the controversial debt recovery scheme implemented under the Liberal-National Coalition governments of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Scott Morrison.

SBS will launch three new homegrown dramas, Warm Props, Moni and Moonbird, but has remained tight-lipped about casting. Warm Props follows protagonist Charlie Flogim as she returns to her hometown of Broome to deal with a chaotic film shoot. Moonbird explores the relationship between a recently sober father and his son, who attempt to reconnect during mutton birding season on a remote Tasmanian island.

The Western-Sydney-based drama Moni charts the adventures of a closeted 39-year-old Samoan man haunted by a deep secret he harboured from childhood.

SBS has also secured the sixth and final season of ratings juggernaut The Handmaid’s Tale and Studio Canal’s much-anticipated drama Playing Nice. Based on the J.P. Delaney book, the series sees James Norton and Niamh Algar as a couple who face a horrifying dilemma amid a hospital mix-up.

Set in Cornwall and based on the book of the same name by J.P. Delaney, James Norton stars and executive produces this drama.Credit: SBS

Long considered the home of food programming, SBS will deliver more series for Australian appetites. The Cook Up with Adam Liaw is back for another season, while Matt Moran returns to the small screen in Memory Bites with Matt Moran.

The latter follows celebrities such as Pia Miranda, Richard Roxburgh, Ross Noble and Danielle Cormack on a trip down memory lane as Moran recreates sentimental dishes from their pasts.

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