Aboriginal Australia resources - TV & Radio
Aboriginal radio stations
How many Aboriginal radio stations do you think broadcast in Australia? You'll be surprised to find many more than you had expected, some of which have been broadcasting into Aboriginal communities since many years.
National Indigenous Television
National Indigenous Television (NITV) is Australia's first (and currently only) 24-hour Indigenous television channel. NITV officially launched in July 2007 after many years of planning and negotiating [1] and is viewed by at least 250,000 Indigenous people each day [4].
NITV was first available only on Imparja TV and in remote communities from the Torres Strait to the Kimberleys, in the northern parts of Australia.
In October 2007 NITV began broadcasting on Pay TV through Austar (2.4 million homes) and Foxtel (1.4 million) on the basic package, meaning there was no additional cost to subscribers.
NITV is available free-to-air for Sydneysiders since late October 2008 on Digital Forty Four's digital channel 40. About 60,000 Aboriginal people live in Sydney along with 3.8 million non-Indigenous people.
The program is available via Channel 180 on Foxtel, Optus and Austar, on TransAct subscription television services (Canberra; ACT) and on Neighbourhood Cable subscription (Geelong, Ballarat, Mildura; VIC) [2].
NITV is funded by the Australian government. The most successful programs of the TV program are The Barefoot Rugby League show and the Marngrook Footy Show.
See www.nitv.org.au for more details.
Black faces on television
Hardly any Aboriginal faces feature on Australian television outside movies. But Aboriginal people would benefit through improved confidence, pride and a better sense of their identity.
Broome-based Goolarri TV is an Aboriginal department which produces local television material, corporate or training DVDs, designs and makes media campaigns and advertising for government or corporate clients, and produces documentaries and television series that explore the people and culture of the region.
Watch the video below, created for the Office of Road Safety (ORS). It is a good example of how you can incorporate black faces into something that concerns us all: driver fatigue.
ABC Message Stick program
The ABC broadcasts the Message Stick program which, according to its executive producer, "recognises, celebrates and promotes Indigenous people and culture" by telling "compelling human-interest stories which will resonate with all Australians and provide a sense of true and honest national identity... these are the true Australian stories." [3]
Message Stick screens on Sundays at6 1.30pm and is repeated the following Saturday at 11.30am.
Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
[1] 'NITV free for Sydneysiders', National Indigenous Times 30/10/2008 p.11
[2] 'NITV now free across Sydney', Koori Mail 438 p.37
[3] 'Message Stick promises TV smorgasbord', Koori Mail 469 p.30
[4] 'Uncertainty for NITV 'cruel'', Koori Mail 472 p.6