How about NITV lobbying the government to get ICTV a satellite link back to their communities again? Afterall, ICTV's pioneering development was the example cited in the development of NITV, so I think they owe them. How much does a link cost the government? Perhaps silk and leather refits to the PM's plane are more important.

ICTV's programming serves a very different purpose to the to NITV. Many of the ICTV communities are very isolated and ICTV met their specific needs by supplying essential information and cultural programs that are meaningful to them. Having to jump through the hoops of another bureaucracy is not going to help remote video makers produce television relevant to their communities. Surely programmes made by and about people living in those communities are going to serve them better. Good luck to ICTV and IRCA. Look forward to hearing remote TV is alive and well and broadcasting again soon.

hey countrymen/women
why are we fighting each other over something that we all could benefit from? I speak for people in the bush and believe that ICTV was the real deal for people in the bush and others.
For example, old people visiting towns or other communities saw their own people on ICTV - maybe dancing their own wanga(corroboree)on ICTV and you just look at their faces and you can see the pride & confidence and the change in attitude towards their young if they were a part of the Tv crew,and also the talk around town. Little comments like "hey boy you should have cooked that fish this way" or poke fun at the local star,or just maybe watched a deadly band saying i want that band to play for my 21st birthday and things like this, is happening.
Even the frail & elderly benefit. In one of many aged care facilities in our region the staff were not allowed to change the channel. ICTV ruled the whole hospital - 90percent of patients are indigenous but the non indigenous patients love ICTV as well.
In Broome non indigenous people are talking like us, kriol talk and they love it,some even go barney(goanna) hunting now, and eating it too, the germans/european tourists love the hunting and eating shows.
People want to see real aboriginal shows that are made by aboriginal people that actually walk and talk and live aboriginal way not cutting things to suit certain audiences or cut off the leg that carried not only indigenous community issues but issues that maybe the Australian government could learn from. In Aboriginal way sharing is one of our greatest assets.
ICTV was and always will be true to our people. Come on NITV - be real and true to your people, you can fool some people sometimes but you can't fool all the people all the time.
I feel sorry for NITV's blindness and selfish attitude towards our brothers and sisters out in the bush.

I fully agree with the above post. Give ICTV back their link. They serve a different purpose to NITV. The demise of ICTV would be tragic for the many communities who've had access to this essential service for many years.

In our short time operating as an Indigenous media unit and living in this 21st centry moden world we sometime forget our way in life when our minds are filled with big ideas, glossy footage and professional castings, these are important things but when we compromise our ideals to obtain these things we loss the core part of ourselves and our identiy of flesh and blood, then we become the dominators. the advocating of Indeginous people's rights across our nation becomes meaningless and dissrespectful. That which we once so proudly stood for all to share as equals is really fake and demonising to our own people.

Careless, crude and unnecessary is necessary, because the only ground breaking NITV is acheving is the ground breaking beneath ICTV.

In memory back, there seems to be a long history of well-intentioned interventions in aboriginal community. The most recent is justly motivated by an emergent circumstance but sadly seems also subject to some level of political opportunism in terms of timing.

I quote from a deceased elder whose name I cannot mention for cultural reasons. "You people are like a drugaddict for us. You can't get enough of us." This man's comment encapsulates so succintly, yet so accurately, the whole unremitting spectrum and timeline of non-aboriginal intervention in aboriginal affairs and the exploitative aspects of the caucasian-aboriginal cross-cultural experience.

It began with the expropriation of lands, then justified under a skewed mal-interpretation of the colonisers' religious ethos.

Then came palliative policies which decreed that the people and culture were fated to become extinct so needed comforture in the dying days. There were human rights abuses, massacres, slavery, round-ups and compulsory movement to reserved lands. The people soon learned to comply and keep their heads down. Those who objected were disappeared one way or another. So much for palliation and comforture.

Attributes of passive non-compliance by citizens of occupied nations, were so heroically regarded by allies in World War 2. These are not seen quite in the same light when the Australian caucasian-aboriginal interface experience is examined.

Policies were devised, which dictated the removal of children from the care of their parents, purportedly for the good of their bodies and minds if not their souls. This must have been of some concern to people of conscience because iconic Australian writer Ion E. Idriess was compelled to mention it.

CONT'D.

Children of caucasian-aboriginal parentage were subjected to state-sanctioned forced separation of parents by laws or regulation related to "cohabition", which did not easily favour successful and worthy relationships and they were more vulnerable to removal.

Over the last two generations or so, there have been innovations of encouraging and funding aboriginal initiatives in commerce, social and cultural maintenance, so long as the strings attached, remain attached.

When aboriginal people establish an intent and means of pursuing an independent and self-sustaining dream, so often that dream becomes subordinate and modified to the aspirations and needs of the non-aboriginal facilitator or go-betweens.

This is not to say aboriginal people are blameless when some programs fail or corruption and nepotism occurs. Such mishaps do not justify total curtailment of projects when looking for and empowering the quiet achievers will resolve the problem. - This is basic proven community developmental methodology employed by NGOs overseas which our own authorities seem incapable of grasping.

A more cynical person sees an agenda whereby aboriginal aspiration must not be allowed to get too much out of control, lest it become a challenge to established political ideals through becoming an independent voice.

Where does this bring ICTV into the picture?

There has occurred, "nationalisation" by networking of mainstream free-to-air broadcast television to very few main players based on the east coast and the potential and real political influence over public information and opinion that concentration offers. The local viewing audience is not really respected by commercial networks which by necessity pursue the bottom line above all else.

Commercial free-to-air broadcasters bewail their diminshing market share in face of emerging media but seem unable to grasp the once prime commercial catchcry that the customer was always right.

Local viewing audiences are being turned off by un-announced programming changes, advertorial programming and almost arrogant dilution of news content with cross-promotion. Don't get me started on reality shows and late-night "pornomercials".

More potently disturbing has been discovery of how politcally subordinate mainstream newmedia has become.