Indigenous Community TV Relaunches

28 October 2009

Screenings - External, Organisation

In association with Pilbara and Kimberley Aboriginal Media (PAKAM), Indigneous Community Television (ICTV Ltd) is proud to announce the reprise of ICTV on a new satellite carrier provided through Westlink, a division of the Western Australian Department of Regional Development.

ICTV will be a weekend service available free-to-air to some 147 remote and very remote Aboriginal communities Australia-wide, and direct to home via satellite. Broadcast will commence each Friday at 6pm and conclude on Monday at 6am.

Original, community-initiated, community-produced television programming will be aggregated in Alice Springs by ICTV and will initially draw video programs from Remote Indigenous Media Organizations (RIMOs) in Western Australia (PAKAM and Ngaanyatjarra Media), South Australia (PY Media), and from many other remote communities. These three primary RIMO hubs alone support 58 indigenous communities in the production of radio and television. In Western Australia there are about 40 communities with television broadcasting and re-transmission licenses serviced out of the PAKAM and Ngaanyatjarra Media hubs.

The content and style is unique, having been developed by bush video producers over the past twenty-five years (since the ‘invention’ of indigenous TV at Yuendumu and Ernabella in the mid-1980s). The focus of ICTV is on culture and language, and the need to keep Aboriginal cultures and languages alive and vibrant. ICTV emphasizes story over production values. These are stories that engage and inform, that share the news and events of the indigenous communities in remote and regional Australia. ICTV is rough and raw, relevant and entertaining, programming for and by the audience it is intended for.