New society plans educational TV channel for Nunavut
The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission is looking to see more dedicated educational programming on basic cable packages. That’s exactly what the TV Nunavut Education Broadcast Society wants to provide.
TV Nunavut was formed earlier this year with that goal in mind.
"We'd like to have that channel up and running and we'd like to make sure that would be a part of what they're calling 'small basic' or 'skinny basic' cable packages, because ultimately if you're going to have a television channel you want to make sure that people can watch the channel," said Debbie Brisebois, executive director of IBC and a board member of TV Nunavut.
On Friday, TV Nunavut chair Charlotte DeWolff gave a presentation to the CRTC as part of the hearings in Ottawa called “Let’s Talk TV.” Brisebois was also there.
“We were more than happy,” said Brisebois.
“I mean, they essentially agreed with us 100 per cent, and actually mentioned that they hope to see an actual license application from this channel.”
Brisebois hopes the new channel will be up and running sometime next year.
TV Nunavut is made up of a group of partners, including the Ajjiit Nunavut Media Association, IBC, the Nunavut independent TV production community and Nunavut Film.
Talks began around forming the group in 2012.
The CRTC's hearing wraps up on Friday.
Corrections
- An earlier version of this story suggested the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation wanted to launch a new TV channel in Nunavut. In fact, IBC is part of a larger society at work on the project.Sep 17, 2014 12:53 PM CT