- Date:
- 1999 - present
- Areas Of Involvement:
- broadcasting
- Indigenous peoples
- television
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) is a national Canadian broadcaster providing Indigenous content for Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences. APTN’s programs express concerns largely absent from mainstream media and explore the cultures, challenges, and everyday experiences of Indigenous people in Canada and beyond. The network aims to serve a general audience while still prioritizing Indigenous perspectives and cultural production. APTN demonstrates a unique model that can inform Indigenous media production globally. This entry discusses the history of APTN, its programming, and its role in public discourse and in Indigenous cultural production.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) granted a license for APTN in 1999 following the success in northern Canada (the North) of its predecessor, Television Northern Canada (TVNC). TVNC, Canada’s first Indigenous network, had proven there was interest across the North for programming centered on Indigenous cultural, social, and political affairs. TVNC began serving the North in 1992 using satellite to deliver content produced by its owners, a network of organizations stretching across the region.
By the late 1990s, the network identified interest in a national network, and with the support of Indigenous groups such as the Assembly of First Nations, it submitted an application for a license for APTN from the CRTC after receiving confirmation that the commission recognized the importance of the initiative. As a way of ensuring economic viability for the network, the CRTC made it mandatory for cable providers in southern Canada to carry APTN and charge its users a fee as part of their basic cable packages. Community members in the North continued to receive the service free of charge.
" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">
APTN’s implementation in the South meant the channel would need to appeal more widely and provide services to the public, including programming oriented toward youth, education, current affairs, arts, culture, entertainment, and news. While originally intending that 90 percent of its programming be Canadian content, APTN found it a formidable challenge to maintain such a high ratio and lowered the level to no less than 70 percent. As a result, it began including more international content from countries such as New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Latin America. International content at times addresses Indigenous issues in other countries, lending itself to pan-Indigenous comparisons. It also includes films and entertainment with no apparent Indigenous themes.
Despite the wider appeal and content, Canadian Indigenous issues and material remain central and constitute the bulk of APTN’s programming. APTN also maintains some of the precedents set by TVNC regarding the promotion of Indigenous languages. Approximately 28 percent of its content is in Indigenous languages including Inuktitut, Cree, Kwak’wala, Dene, and Michif. Moreover, it extends the Indigenous governance structure established by TVNC through a volunteer Aboriginal Board of Directors, with members representing different regions throughout Canada.
Because APTN relies on fees from cable subscriptions as mandated by the CRTC, it has a unique funding structure that makes it less dependent on government and advertising revenue when compared with subsidized and for-profit institutions. Marian Bredin (2012) describes APTN as “a hybrid non-profit public network with a specialty television funding model” that uses its economic independence and public service orientation to promote Indigenous cultural production (p. 202). The network produces in-house current affairs and news programs and supports Indigenous independent television production companies.
Although reflecting the format of mainstream news and current affairs programs to some degree, the content and approach to APTN-produced shows varies from the more polished look of popular broadcast television. APTN National News and current affairs and political programs such as Nation-to-Nation demonstrate a departure from typical mainstream shows as they privilege Indigenous perspectives and provide critical engagement with the legacies of colonization and ongoing struggles of Indigenous communities. Moreover, APTN’s shows address the symbolic annihilation of Indigenous people in popular media by centering their concerns. Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson (2010) describes APTN National News as a form of deep democracy that is “already transgressive in that it gives voice to groups that assert their sovereignty within the boundaries of Canada” (p. 53).
The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.
SUBSCRIBE
APTN National News includes long interviews with Indigenous people rather than merely sound bites, and reports take place in Indigenous communities where mainstream news outlets rarely venture. Interviews are done not just with credentialed experts legitimized in the mainstream, but with ordinary people, elders, healers, and other traditional leaders. News professionals and hosts display Indigenous cultural markers such as the jewelry, clothing, language, and hairstyles influenced by their communities. APTN hosts and journalists are well versed in the issues facing many Indigenous communities, and they engage Indigenous concerns that are largely invisible to the mainstream. APTN also actively works to intervene in political discourse.
In addition to APTN’s in-house shows, the network features educational and cultural programs. For example, Quest OutWest explores the identification, gathering, and preparation of traditional foods and how they relate to cultural knowledge. Similarly, Fish Out of Water combines humor and education through the host’s clumsy attempts at cross-cultural learning. Shows more geared toward entertainment include Arctic Air about Canadian bush pilots starring Anishinaabe actor Adam Beach; Blackstone, a high-drama series about the struggles of an Indigenous reserve; and Mohawk Girls, a show similar to HBO’s Girls, about 20-something Mohawk women exploring young adulthood, dating, and friendship. While such shows assume a similar format to those of the mainstream, they also cater more specifically to Indigenous audiences and experiences. Importantly, APTN also features shows almost entirely created by Indigenous people from the writing and directing to acting and staffing such as Moccasin Flats.
In summary, APTN provides a model for Indigenous networks that privileges Indigenous perspectives and distributes them to a wide Canadian public as part of its public service orientation. While it has made some concessions as a result of the pressures of appealing to wide audiences and meeting programming needs, its funding model allows it some degree of freedom from concerns over public or ad-based revenue. As a result, APTN challenges mainstream omissions of Indigenous people and concerns, shapes public and political discourse, and supports Indigenous cultural production. At the same time, it prioritizes an Indigenous audience that can, at last, see their lives and cultures reflected in the shows they see.
The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society.