Summit to look at new regional television network for Nunavut

The Inuit Broadcasting Corporation and Nunavut’s Ajjiit Media Association will team up to host the territory’s first-ever television summit in Iqaluit next month.

The two organizations hope the three-day summit will attract new ideas and support to create Nunavut’s first regional television network, as a way to boost the Inuktitut-language content available to Nunavut viewers.

“There’s been frustration that there’s not enough Inuktitut programming on air, and what’s there is scattered,” said the IBC’s Debbie Brisebois. “We want to look at what we could do with the remarkable network of talented producers who live in the territory.”

IBC currently produces five Inuktitut-language series, although Brisebois said they are not broadcast on a regular basis.

Some time after the Government of Nunavut was looking at how to beef up its language protection act, the IBC submitted a paper suggesting that the territory could use a regional television network with regular Inuit language programming.

IBC and Ajjitt then teamed up to do a feasibility study on the idea, which confirmed that the need and interest for such a network was in place, Brisebois said.

“We still haven’t considered the governance part of it or who would operate it,” Brisebois said. “And it wouldn’t necessarily operate entirely in Inuktitut – but its primary objective would be to distribute Inuktitut-language products.”

Brisebois hopes that television producers, filmmakers, government officials and language specialists will attend the three-day summit to share their ideas and how they might be able to contribute to Nunavut’s first regional network.

The summit runs from March 6 to March 9 at Iqaluit’s Frobisher Inn.

For more information on the summit’s agenda or registration, contact Brisebois at 1-800-267-8327 or Alethea Arnaquq-Baril at Ajjiit at 867-222-1919.