New hosts hope to attract youth to televised Inuit language phone-in show

Thomas Anguti Johnston and Vinnie Karetak in 2013, during the taping of the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation’s comedy show Qanurli or What Now? This fall, they’ll take on more serious roles, as the new hosts of IBC’s long-running phone-in show, Qanuq Isumavit, which kicks off Oct. 7. (FILE PHOTO)

The Inuit Broadcasting Corporation kicks off a new season for its current affairs talk show, Qanuq Isumavit, on APTN North, Oct. 7.

New hosts Thomas Anguti Johnston and Vinnie Karetak will anchor the long-running current affairs talk show.

The duo hosted a few episodes of Qanuq Isumavit last year and they hope to take the 90-minute phone-in show to another level this season.

“We’re trying to open it up, so we can get a younger audience to also participate through Twitter and Facebook,” said Johnston, who is also the show’s producer and IBC’s creative director.

The program will open Inuit and northern current affairs topics for discussion every Tuesday evening.

This season’s first two episodes will focus on education. Pujjuut Kusugak, a board member for Nunavut Sivuniksavut, will be this season’s first guest, in a discussion about formal education.

Johnston says that this season’s line-up of topics “will include a wide variety of issues that affect Nunavummiut, including language, mining, hunting, and cultural preservation,” he said. “We’ll also be studying what’s next, where we’ll be going in the future.”

Audiences can follow the live show every Tuesday through a live Twitter and Facebook feed, starting at 8:00 p.m. in the Baffin region, 7:00 p.m. in Kivalliq and 6:00 p.m. in the Kitikmeot.

Johnston and Karetak are best known for their show Qanurli? (What’s Next? in English), a comedy program geared toward Inuit youth. APTN is now broadcasting that show’s fourth season.

Plans for a fifth season are in the works, according to IBC’s director of programming, Stacey Aglok Macdonald. Production of new episodes will begin in 2015.

IBC’s 2014-2015 programming line-up will feature a few other small changes. The cooking show Niqitsiaq will return with a new co-host, Annabella Piugattuk, who will join fan-favourite Rebecca Veevee.

Ilinniq will be back with a new host, Pujjuut Kusugak, whom viewers will recognize from his first appearance as guest on Qanuq Isumavit.

Kusugak will travel as host and narrator to municipalities around the territory “to meet people and experience what makes each community unique,” the IBC stated in an Oct. 7 news release.

Kusugak will bring “more structure to the episodes,” Johnston told Nunatsiaq News. The first set of episodes will feature Rankin Inlet, Arviat and Kugluktuk.

One of the season’s biggest changes will see IBC’s longest-running show, Takuginai, shift from televised broadcast to the internet.

Geared toward children, the half-hour educational show’s newest episodes will appear online only through the program’s own website of the same name. APTN will continue to show past episodes this season.

“This will be the first new thing to appear on the website for a number of years,” said Aglok Macdonald.

“This is an exciting year for IBC,” she said, pointing to changes in programming, as well as the corporation’s plans to build a new studio.

All IBC programs appear on APTN North.