As TV and radio content became more widespread, community-based broadcasters and filmmakers produced shows in Indigenous languages, delivered health and education services, and established administrative and media production expertise. Given the success of this work, during the early 1980s the federal government increased funding for Indigenous production companies.
In northern Canada, this work developed into 13 Native Communications Societies that trained producers, create shows, and set up a distribution system called Television Northern Canada. These activities supported Indigenous broadcasters in producing their own programs. Over time these local efforts grew into larger-scale projects. For example, in 1981 the CRTC granted a broadcast license to the national Inuit political organization, the Inuit Tapirisat, which used it to found the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation and Taqramiut Nipingat Incorporated. The Inuit Tapirisat mandated these two organizations to generate and distribute Inuktitut language content across the northern territories.
First Nations also built regional links among the Native Communications Societies. In 1983, the 13 societies produced 20 hours of Indigenous language programming on radio and five hours of television programming each week. To extend the distribution of their content, some Indigenous groups also began working with mainstream broadcasters.
CRTC Public Notice 1985-274 on Northern Native Broadcasting, from the CRTC archives, provides background information on these projects, summarized from various CRTC reports. Lorna Roth’s 2005 book Something New in the Air provides further details on these stories.
Distribution remained a challenge in many remote communities. During the 1986 Federal Task Force on Broadcasting Policy, Indigenous groups proposed a government-funded satellite distribution system to address this gap. In June 1988, the federal government committed $10 million over four years to develop a northern regional broadcast network. This initiative funded Television Northern Canada, which began broadcasting to 96 northern communities in January 1992.
But despite these successes, the federal government did not provide funding for Indigenous content production, and unexpected budget cuts during the 1990s struck hard. After the federal government cancelled their funding without warning in 1990, nine of the Native Communications Societies closed down during that decade.
After a broad public coalition emerged to protest these budget cuts, the government’s new Native Broadcasting Policy (1990) relaxed rules around content and advertising. The Indigenous broadcasters adopted a more commercial business model, expanding to new regions and shifting their content to attract a more general audience. Some commentators felt these changes undermined some of the things that made their content so unique, such as its close links with communities, its diverse and localized focus, and its ability to create media content in many Indigenous languages.
Over time, these changes coalesced into various Indigenous-led braodcasting projects. These included initiatives by groups such as Isuma, community radio stations, and a national network, called the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network (APTN). APTN is part of the basic cable package, meaning that all households in Canada that subscribe to cable service receive it.
APTN’s programs range from news and movies to traditional storytelling, language lessons, interviews with community Elders and leaders, and Indigenous language content. The broadcaster also provides funding and distribution support to Indigenous producers located in countries like the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia. Today, it continues to be funded through a blend of subscriber fees, government subsidies, advertising, and contributions from funders.
Read about the APTN on their corporate website.
Looking to the Future
The Future of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Broadcasting: Conversation & Convergence series – In 2017 a series of regional events followed by a national conference brought “practitioners, policy makers and academics together as allies to prepare a context for respectful and meaningful consultation” on the CRTC’s review of the Native Broadcasting
Policy (CRTC 1990-89) which began in 2018.
- Media coverage and resources from The Future of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Broadcasting: Conversation & Convergence series – 2017
- The Future of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Broadcasting: Conversation & Convergence series Conference page.
- Videos from the conference are also available on YouTube.
CRTC – A current CRTC document, Co-Development of the Indigenous Broadcasting Policy, outlines a review process guided by the principles of reconciliation, intended to provide a framework for a new policy developed in cooperation with First Nations.