ABSTRACT
The establishment of a National Indigenous Television network (NITV) has been seen as an important step both in recognizing and meditatizing Indigenous cultures on Australian television. The product of many years of contestation, negotiation, and lobbying, NITV now broadcasts 24 hours a day into Australian homes from its base in the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) network. In many ways, its location within a PBS network constituted a sharp break from a well-established history of Indigenous community media, but there are other, more far-reaching tensions that NITV has to deal with as it develops its identity and its audiences – and as it attempts to meet the cultural remit behind its establishment. Indeed, NITV faces something of a dilemma as it attempts what amounts to a form of ‘nationing’ of the Indigenous media field in Australia, while finding that the requirements of its schedule result in what might be described as an ‘inadvertent’ cosmopolitanism as it struggles to find the amount of local content required. This chapter will draw upon the policy history and interviews with NITV personnel in order to discuss the complex cultural and political positioning of NITV within the Australian public broadcasting landscape.
