Distribution
The 1983 Northern Broadcasting Policy stated as one of its principles that northern native people should have “Fair Access” to northern broadcasting distribution systems to maintain and develop their cultures and languages. The Policy did not define “Fair Access”; in Nunavut, IBC relied on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to carry its programming.
CBC was generally supportive of IBC and its goals. But the programming produced by CBC’s own northern service took precedence, and IBC programming, as a priority, came last on the list, and in the schedule. IBC programs were run after twelve at night, and were subject to pre-emption whenever a hockey game ran late. Rosemary Kuptana, then president of IBC, commented to the CRTC that “God made our land the land of the midnight sun…it took the CBC to make it the Land of Midnight television.”
Despite the late night timeslots, several independent audience surveys confirmed that IBC was attracting up to 95 percent of Inuit viewers for its programming.However, the CBC Northern service planned to expand its own northern programming, and IBC programs were being pre-empted with increasing frequency.
The answer lay in the creation of a dedicated northern satellite channel. This was achieved in 1988, when Minister of Communications Flora MacDonald committed $10M to the creation of Television Northern Canada (TVNC), a pan-northern network established by northerners, for northerners. After three years of research, design and installation, the new network launched in 1992, providing IBC and other broadcasters with both a channel for their broadcast series, and an opportunity to return to experimental programming in the spirit of the Inukshuk project.
TVNC led directly to the creation of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) in 1999, when the CRTC granted a license to APTN and mandated the carriage of the network as part of the basic service of Broadcast Distribution Undertakings.
Read more about this topic: Inuit Broadcasting Corporation
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