Careless, crude and unnecessary

The honour of creating the first Aboriginal television service in Australian history clearly belongs to ICTV who have been free-to-air broadcasting a regular schedule of Indigenous programming to remote communities since 2001. Today ICTV boasts a widely recognised “brand” that is cherished by the loyal producers and viewers who sustain its operation. Children singing the “ICTV, Showing Our Way” motto greet crews throughout the Centre and the North.

ICTV programming was gathered from scores of communities from the Warlpiri, Pintubi, Anmatjere, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands, and from many more language groups represented by PAKAM (Pilbara and Kimberley Aboriginal Media). These contributing communities, represented by four major media hubs, made up half the total 150 communities that received ICTV. Programming was also drawn from further a-field, as it became available: from Roebourne, Warburton, Broome, Tennant Creek, Northampton, Batchelor, Alice Springs, and increasing numbers of urban producers.

ICTV and IRCA’s achievement is especially notable because it has been accomplished with no dedicated funding whatsoever. ICTV was not formed in response to a consultant’s report or a government program, but through partnerships and the ingenuity and energy drawn from remote communities themselves.

It is important to note that it was the enormous success of ICTV that put Imparja Channel 31 on the map as an Indigenous broadcaster. Essentially, Imparja Channel 31 was ICTV. Indeed, the ultimate success of the lobby for the $48.5 funding allocation for Indigenous broadcasting was in large part due to the heavily cited, pioneering example of ICTV, which was recommended as a foundation for the NITV service.

The irony is, that now, with the most generous allocation of funding for Indigenous media ever, the remote communities that got the ball rolling, will be penalised.

Original intents and purposes of remote Indigenous media

Twenty years ago, at the beginning of this journey into self-representation, clear distinctions were made between the needs of, and strategies for, promoting remote media practice on the one hand and urban-based Indigenous media on the other.

The BRACS or Broadcast for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme was conceived and initiated in the mid-1980s to service the distinctive needs of REMOTE Indigenous communities. Subsequently, cities and large urban centres did not figure in the development of ICTV or the content it produced and screened. Now in a regressive stroke, this lesson has been disregarded and NITV has been installed as a one-stop-shop through which all networked Indigenous media will be filtered.

It should also be acknowledged that the radical expansion, the doubling of the number of television transmitters and satellite decoders, which NITV has now taken over, would not have occurred without the determined effort of the remote television sector represented by the Indigenous Remote Communications Association (IRCA), the ICTV membership and remote media organisation managers who successfully lobbied for the transmitter roll out with the specific purpose of extending the reach of ICTV.

The Minister’s caution

A telling gap between intention and implementation is revealed by the failure of NITV to follow the sensible guidelines outlined by the Minister and expressed in her letter to the Australian Indigenous Communications Association (AICA) on August 14, 2006.

In this letter the Minister directed that the new service be based on Option 3 of the Indigenous Television Review Report (PDF 1.05MB). This report states that the new NITV service should: “Build on the Indigenous Community Television narrowcasting service [ICTV] transmitted by Imparja Television …” This has clearly not happened.

Option 3 also states that: “Under this option, ICTV would be funded to commission or produce additional Indigenous content to strengthen its schedule.” This cannot happen since the ICTV play out has been terminated and no content provision agreement between ICTV and NITV has been put in place.

Further, the Minister stated that: “one of the pillars of Option 3 is the programming developed by remote communities”, and “the business plan should articulate the proposed accommodation of the existing ICTV programming within NITV.”