No Voice Without Pictures – urgent action needed to address the crisis facing remote TV broadcasting
Four out of five Indigenous households won’t be following this week’s televised broadcasts on a voice to parliament as remote areas remain deprived of basic television services.
That’s the blunt message representatives of Imparja, the Indigenous-owned not-for-profit broadcaster delivering commercial television services to the most remote areas of the country, will deliver today to government MPs.
Imparja Television CEO Mr Alistair Feehan pleaded with the Albanese Government to take urgent action to address the remote broadcasting crisis which continues to cut off remote Indigenous Australians from national and international news, views and entertainment.
‘Instead of being included in a community debate about the need for Indigenous voices to be heard by decision-makers, remote Indigenous Australians will be out of the loop,’ Feehan said. ‘It’s a bitter irony that the very people the voice is designed to assist won’t have a clue what’s going on in Canberra.’
Recent work by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) has revealed that up to 80 percent of Indigenous households have no working free television service due to damaged cabling or dishes and defunct set top boxes.
Appeals to government for rescue packages to ensure Indigenous Australians can access the same news, information and entertainment as other Australians have for years been ignored.
‘If we are serious about using the Voice to Parliament to include First Nations peoples in policy debates, we must connect them to those debates through a television in their homes. This is a very basic service other Australians take for granted,’ said Feehan.
‘We need the Government to step up on this. A demonstration of good faith with Indigenous communities would be if we left Canberra this week with a firm commitment to a plan for the restoration of basic remote television services and a regular program of equipment repair and maintenance.
‘Imparja is also fighting for survival. Without urgent additional funding, remote Australians who can access television will receive fewer channels from 30 June as Imparja struggles to keep the doors open.
‘While successive past governments have recognised Imparja’s perilous financial position, they have only offered morsels. We are now at crisis point. This is crunch time.
‘We cannot continue to provide the range of services we provide today when there simply isn’t the commercial revenue available to support them. We are at the point now where either the Government contributes towards the cost of these services or some services will go black on 30 June.
‘There has rarely been a more important time for all Australians, including First Nations people living in remote areas, to be connected and involved in a public policy discussion.’
I’d say broadcasting services towards Indigenous people are in crisis with National Indigenous Radio Service (NIRS) still off air. The proposed referendum on the Voice to Parliament is the perfect opportunity to provide immediate relief funding to both NIRS and Imparja, without waiting for the Federal Budget in May.
Though I don’t recall what came of that review other than, perhaps, migrating NITV into SBS. Not sure that anything else really changed for the rest of the indigenous broadcasting sector? Obviously a lot of support is needed to community and commercial operators.
I wonder if there are some people involved in imparja television who are opposed to a take over by 9 or WIN to buy the station? Sometimes a purchase of a business by a bigger business helps to ensure its viability and survival in times like this
If Imparja wants to go back to being a community station, Could it give up its affirmation arrangements with the 9 network and convert to being a community station like channel 31? And let WIN or 9 set up shop on the central market as a seperate business to imparja? Would that work?
Hate to say it, Central Australia should have stayed a solus monopoly market with a single service cherry picking from all 3 commercial networks. It is arguable, that there is not enough money to even run a multi-channel either, let alone 6 of them at the moment. That would have been the only way for continued local programming on Imparja to possibly still be produced of which there is none on all 3 commercial non-WA remote services. The Central remote licence area should have been consolidated with the QQQ/ITQ market with those licences being abolished leaving IMP as the sole licenced non-WA remote operator. As WA has a major time difference, that state’s remote service would have needed to stay as GWN being a duopoly with WIN as it is now. Albeit the TEN WEST JV makes no money either, with GWN and WIN making at least some money unlike Imparja 9, and SCA 7 Central barely making money to cover costs while jointly paying to operate JV 10 Central at a loss, with 10 Central mostly only running CSA’s top to tail in many breaks. It costs money neither JV partner has to run a station with mostly CSA’s. A massive mess is all that can be said. Can see a major Fed Govt bail out on the cards at some point nonetheless. If so, there needs to be a restructure of some kind to make these services run viably if a Fed Govt bailout occurs, even if that means paying SCA to bail out of the market and leaving IMP as the sole operator carrying a mix of 7,9 & 10 on a 2 main channel semi-equalisation model which is exactly what many regionals argued for before aggregation came into being.
Remember when IMP tried to buy NTD, and Nine said no. That would have been smart for IMP if that occurred as that could possibly have saved IMP which is now seemingly at the point of switching off with the looming economic downturn, sadly.
I did say ‘possibly’. We will never know. At best if IMP switches off, what was IMP may just become a fulltime relay of NTD with possibly the Fed Govt paying NEC to run a 9 Remote/Central split for commercial insertion only. I dare say there will not even be a north and south split anymore either.
I’ve seen this proposed a couple times on this forum and no it won’t. Nine doesn’t have a broadcasting licence in the region and ACMA won’t just give them one.
So whether the people like it or not, the TV in that market has gone backwards without government help. A very sad day for the people in the central market
It has had government help, Territory and Federal to varying degrees from the very start. And continues to do so with help for VAST transmission costs. Is why it took until 1988 to even launch in Alice Springs as it was not viewed as being viable for any self-funded commercial services by broadcasting bureaucrats. Central and remote area viewers are very lucky to even have commercial television services full stop.
I agree.
Back in the early 2000s I had family who lived in outback QLD that I used to stay with occasionally and from my memory - Imparja was very much a cherry pick of 9 and 10 at that point which seemed to me, as an outsider, to work quite well.
In those days they had ABC, SBS, SC7, and Imparja.
It seems incorrect thinking this now, but I definitely have memories of settling in to watch a show while visiting only to find they were an episode behind and were watching what we saw on the coast a week before.
Not sure how the play out worked.
Realistically it would all be in a better position now if Imparja ran the whole thing and cherry picked whatever they wanted from 7,9,10.
Maybe with one multichannel where they’d cherry pick shoes from all the multis.
I feel they’ve kind of been ripped off with the digital transition. They provide Channel 9 to so many
people outside of their own market yet can’t make money from them.
No doubt their license prevents them from selling ads in other markets, but still, they’ve become a last resort service, acting as Nine’s bandaid solution for blackspots in Nine’s own markets. Surely there’s some wiggle room to allow them to sustain themselves? You’d want to hope Nine has assisted with bargain basement affiliation fees at least!
If anything, considering the dire financial situation the organisation seems to be in, they should have a peppercorn arrangement with Nine and not be paying affiliation fees at all.
I suspect if Nine held the license they wouldn’t be making any money either.
Probably. But at least Nine would be able to justify the losses. I reckon they’d switch North and South to dirty feeds of Brisbane and Sydney including the ads and call it a day.