Celebrating 10 years of NITV, but what challenges lie ahead for an under-resourced First Nations media sector?

Ten years ago, National Indigenous TV launched on free-to-air after Federal budget allocated an additional $158.1 million to SBS funding, a 27% boost.

This gave the network the opportunity to launch into living rooms across the country, five years after its initial first broadcast.

The launch went hand in hand with a two-hour special from Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park, hosted by Stan Grant and Rhoda Roberts, with a concert airing that night with artists including Casey Donovan, Christine Anu, and Troy Cassar-Daley.

This week, 10 years to the day on 12 December 2022, The Heart of our Nation, was broadcast nationally across both NITV and SBS with Donovan, Cassar-Daley, and Anu returning to screens, in a concert hosted by John Paul Janke, Narelda Jacobs and Ernie Dingo.

Listen to the full podcast special. 

There were new faces too, with ARIA winners King Stingray, Electric Fields, JK-47, Zipporah, and Jem Cassar-Daley too.

Sunset with Casey Donovan. Photo credit NITV

What NITV means for Australia’s First Nations media sector

Dot West, Noongar woman, former non-executive director of SBS, and current head of productions at Goolarri Media Enterprises said to an audience on Tuesday: “Against the odds we continue to build our First Nations media industry.”

West gave the keynote address at the global Indigenous panel for the World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network (WITBN) conference, part of the 10th anniversary celebrations on Tuesday.

“We now have 35 licenced radio stations with 230 broadcast sites around the country with the capacity to reach 48% of our people.”

First Nations media has grown significantly across the past decade, much of this thanks to the uplifting support and platform NITV has given its network.

West continued: “In 2012, Our TV station was given a lifeline by SBS and for the last 10 years not only our people, but all Australians, have had the privilege of immersing themselves in our First Nations world through our news, our stories, our cultures and our lives. The last 10 years hasn’t been a smooth ride – we had bumps, turns and potholes to overcome.”

West has recently left the SBS Board, after spending the maximum term of 10 years, and during that time helping the broadcaster, its managing director James Taylor, head of Indigenous content, Tanya Denning-Orman and the rest of the team steward the station to where it is now within SBS: “at its heart”.

Peter Noble, general manager of NITV, and Girramay and Bandjin man tells Mumbrella that the celebration was a “really, really special moment for everyone in the organisation, because “if you read through the history books, NITV’s had a sometimes turbulent history in terms of surviving.”

Noble joined NITV last year as a veteran of the Australian media industry, with roles at Disney, Seven and Ten.

West, speaking on the Mumbrellacast

“Like all good books, you finish a chapter and you can’t wait to get into the next chapter, and that’s what I see NITV’s next 10 years is about.”

“We are in a really, really interesting epoch of time with the road to the referendum coming on, and we’ve got a really, really important role to play there.”

Part of this, he says is bringing brands like Google and Nike to the platform.

“Like every other media entity, we are charged with growing our audiences, delivering engaging content, entertaining content, and informative content.”

“So we’re already, having deep conversations and really, really focusing on strategy in terms of, what does the next three years look like? What does the next five years look like? What does the next 10 years look like?”

West tells Mumbrella that SBS has “full embraced NITV”, to place it, as she says again, “at the heart of that network”.

“NITV, a national Indigenous television service has always been our Indigenous media industry’s dream,” West says.

Noble says major brands are coming to NITV

“It’s always been on our agenda to have it, and that is why this 10 year celebration is such a milestone, not just for NITV, not just for SBS, but it’s also a milestone for the whole of our whole first Nations media.”

Naomi Moran is a Nyangbal, Arakwal and Dunghutti woman, and is general manager of national Indigenous newspaper, the Koori Mail. She is also the current chair of First Nations Media Australia.

Moran says the move in 2012 happened at a significant time. “We could’ve lost NITV, and we could’ve lost the significance of having out own national Indigenous television station”.

“In the wider media landscape, Indigenous media plays a vital role in making sure that not just the voices of our people are being heard, but our stories are shared in the most culturally authentic way.”

The challenge ahead

With the government committing to an Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum in 2023, thought to be coming in the latter part of the year, there remains little clarity about what exactly this will mean.

Moran says “there still seems to be a bit of a gap in terms of what this vote will means for our people and our communities.”

“We’ve seen that firsthand because we’ve been having those intimate conversations as mob and as people. So I think there’s a concern that there’s still a lot of our people around the nation that are unaware of what this means for our people, and what this means to have the conversation.”

“So I think Indigenous media plays a big role in making sure that we are communicating this message or we’re communicating the need to have those conversations more intimately, to make sure that everybody is of the understanding of what this means so that they can decide if this is something that is for them now.”

Moran: ‘The government is asking an under-resourced industry to take on this work’

“I’m not taking away the fact that on a national scale we are looking forward to what this potentially could mean in terms of strengthening relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, that’s really important.”

”What we need to understand though is that there are still some misunderstandings within our communities around what this means, particularly around conversations around treaty and maintaining our sovereign rights as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,”

“The government has made it very clear that Indigenous media has a responsibility to share these messages. Now they’re asking a sector that is still severely underfunded and under-resourced to take on this work.”

“So what does that now mean for the government in terms of their responsibility to make sure that they’re funding and resourcing the Indigenous media sector so that we can do that work?

“We know that we can do it effectively, we can communicate it culturally in a way that it’s received well by our people, but our resources are stretched. So what we are really trying to understand is, we know what our cultural responsibilities, what is the government’s cultural responsibility to make sure that the Indigenous media sector can actually take on this work and support this next chapter for our country?

West adds that in terms of voice and truth, First Nations media has been “doing it for decades”, and that the challenges ahead are nothing new.

In terms of Voice to Parliament, “it is something different”, she says.

“I think First Nations Media does have a challenging time ahead of it. It’s an industry that is poorly funded. Lots of radio stations around the country operate on the smell of an oily rag.”

“But also, because we’re media organisations, we also need to be apolitical about the issue of the referendum, and ensure that all our people’s concerns are voiced and leaving it then up to the communities to decide.”

“We can’t just play one side of the coin. We need to play the other opinions as well. Because otherwise we’re sitting ducks.”

The entire performing cast closed the show with ‘Solid Rock’. Photo credit: NITV

West says if the ABC or SBS played one side of the coin, “they’d be shot down”.

“So why should there be that expectation of our First Nations media organisations to also do that? And if the Voice lobby group, and the government want this to be out there and in the community, they need to properly resource us to do that.”

West says many First Nations media organisations operate with the same budget year in, year out, with no room for growth, and add on top continued inflation, “at most, we’re falling backwards”, she says.

“The other thing that needs to occur is that if the campaign for a yes vote are paying other media to put ads on in regards to it, they’ve got to pay us as well. They can’t expect us to be their champions because we can’t.

“And in terms of other media, you’ve just got to share those sentiments and push whoever’s coming to you to go, we’ll have you talk to the Indigenous media sector? You need to go and engage with them and see what can happen.”

The codes NITV operates under actually make the task a little clearer, Noble says.

“It’s a very complex subject,” he says. “But it’s easy for us, because of our broadcasting codes we need to be impartial. Our role is actually providing a platform so all First Nations voices can be heard because there are many opinions in terms of the road to referendum.

“So our role is to be able to amplify or provide a platform so all of those opinions can be heard. Our aim is that all Australians are as informed as they possibly can be before they go to that voting box.”

Getting to 3%

SBS Media launched Beyond 3% last year, which asked media agencies to consider their engagement with first nations media, and hopefully encourage a long-term shift in the sector.

Noble says he is extremely excited about the opportunities the initiative presents moving forward in the sector.

“Beyond 3% has been an absolute game changer for the whole industry.”

“A lot of large organisations are charged with double-digit growth, and so what I observe is that everyone’s looking for that leading edge, and in my personal opinion, First Nations audiences are largely an untapped audience.

“I think brands are realising that now, and that’s why we are starting to see the Nikes and the Googles of the world coming to partner with us, but also as well, I just think the zeitgeist, and the general landscape, in terms of discussions around road to referendum, I think there’s going to be a natural sort of lean in moment where Australian audiences are really keen to understand First Nations perspectives, and NITV along with all of our other broadcast partners across radio, print, digital, et cetera, we’ll have a role to play in that.

OMG’s Kroon says the group is looking to accelerate funding through a coalition of brands

Chief investment officer at Omnicom Media Group, Kristiaan Kroon tells Mumbrella that engaging constructively with Indigenous-owned media and Indigenous voices is important, but also falls into two buckets.

“W’ve looked at that from a planning perspective. SBS have really driven that agenda at a national level, but there’s also a lot of other locals like Imparja.”

“We spend a lot of time looking at, how could we best do that? Because if you’re just holding the Indigenous-owned media channels to the same standard as say Nine, Seven, or Ten, they’re gonna really struggle on a scale front.

Kroon says OMG has brought together a coalition of willing brands to look to “really accelerate the investment we were doing”.

“And there are some brands in this space as well I would say we, as Omnicom are still learning from our own clients: New South Wales government, Victorian government, Suncorp, and Coles, Telstra.

“Those brands have really led for a number of years. So we spoke to them, and they run their own investment strategies through us, and then we looked to find new money.

“We didn’t want to recycle existing money or existing commitments from brands that were already at that advanced stage, we wanted to bring a coalition of the willing that were ready to take that step.”

OMG also has a specialist team, Diverse, which provides strategy, not just around Indigenous media, but for all other communities in Australia, helping its clients engage authentically in those areas.

While NITV remains under the SBS umbrella, rather than a wholly owned Indigenous network, Kroon emphasises why it is so important to support it, “they clearly support a number of First Nations people and businesses that are part of their supply chain”.

Despite this, he says “what we have certainly identified is, we think our spend is not as high as it could be” still.

CEO of Mediabrands agency, Initiative, Mel Fein tells Mumbrella there are two levers that media agencies can use to make an impact.

Fein: We have two levers to make impact

“As media agencies, the biggest positive impact we can create for Indigenous communities is through advertising spend. It’s that simple. Investing into Indigenous content, channels and audiences can not only make a significant difference to the community it’s also a critical element of mass teaching campaigns and capturing that 3% of the population.”

“This doesn’t mean sacrificing reach. Clients needs to be holding their agencies to account for doing the work and ensuring the investment is made without hindering effectiveness.”

The second lever, Fein says is to work with media partners to ensure they are educating Australians on both sides of the incoming referendum, and what a yes, or a no vote might mean.

“We can then work with our brands to ensure they have a role to play in that story.”

The experience with Imparja, with NITV and other media, Kroon says “has been phenomenal”.

“It’s been good for our teams, it’s been good for our clients, and we see this as an area there there is there’s going to be enormous growth, because there’s really good opportunity, not just from a CSR perspective, but that blending of purpose with performance is also gonna deliver performance as well.”

Who is doing well? West takes a moment to give credit to Ten Network.

“Channel 10 is making genuine efforts in that front, from putting Acknowledgement of Country of where they’re filming upfront in their credits, to going into partnership with NITV to create opportunity, as well as go to 10Play, and you’ve got a whole slate of Indigenous content there for anyone to access.”

“So they’re really coming to the forefront and realising that our First Nations people aren’t just at the heart of SBS, but they’re at the heart of this nation.”

To get the full story, listen to the special edition of the Mumbrellacast.

Disclaimer: The trip to Uluṟu was paid for by SBS.

Calum Jaspan

Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.

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topics ColesDot WestFirst Nations Media AustraliaGoogleGoolarri Media EnterprisesInitiativeKoori MailKristiaan KroonMelissa FeinMumbrellacastNaomi MoranNikeNITVOmnicom Media GroupPeter NobleSBSSuncorpTelstraUluru

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