Aboriginal Peoples Television Network

Established in 1992 and maintained by governmental funding to broadcast in Canada's northern territories, APTN acquired a national broadcast licence in 1999. It airs and produces programs made by, for and about Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, it is the first network by and for North American indigenous peoples.

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network

Country	Canada
Broadcast area	National
Headquarters	Winnipeg, Manitoba
Programming
Language(s)	English, French
Picture format	1080i HDTV (downscaled to letterboxed 480i for the SDTV feed)
Ownership
Owner	Aboriginal Peoples Television Network Inc.
History
Launched	January 21, 1992; 32 years ago (January 21, 1992)
Former names	Television Northern Canada (1992–1999)
Links
Website	www.aptntv.ca
Availability
Terrestrial
Whitehorse, YT	CHWT-TV 10
Yellowknife, NT	CHTY-TV 11
Other Areas	See Below

Establishment

 

In 1980, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued the Therrien Committee Report. In that report, the committee concluded that northern Indigenous peoples had increasing interest in developing their own media services and that the government has a responsibility to ensure support in broadcasting of Indigenous cultures and languages. The committee recommended measures to enable northern native people to use broadcasting to support their languages and cultures.

The Canadian government created the Northern Broadcasting Policy, issued on March 10, 1983. It laid out principles to develop Northern native-produced programming. The policy included support for what was called the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program, a funded program to produce radio and/or television programs in First Peoples' languages to reflect their cultural perspectives.

Soon after the program's creation, problems were recognized in the planned program distribution via satellite. In January 1987, Canadian aboriginal and Northern broadcasters met in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories to form a non-profit consortium to establish a Pan-Northern television distribution service. In 1988, the Canadian government gave the organizers $10 million to establish the network. The application for the new service, initially known as Television Northern Canada (TVNC), was approved by the CRTC in 1991. The network officially launched on over-the-air signals to the Canadian territories and far northern areas of the provinces on January 21, 1992.

National expansion and re-launch

After several years broadcasting in the territories, TVNC began lobbying the CRTC to amend their licence to allow TVNC to be broadcast nationally; they promoted the "uniqueness" and "significance" of a national Aboriginal service. On February 22, 1999, the CRTC granted TVNC a licence for a national broadcast network.

On September 1, 1999, the network also re-branded as the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN). It was added to all specialty television services across Canada. APTN was the first national public television network for indigenous peoples.

In 2023, APTN had an annual budget of $47 million.

APTN's service consists of six different feeds: two terrestrial feeds, separate national cable feeds for Eastern (Ontario and east), Western Canada (Manitoba and west), Northern Canada, as well as a national HD feed.

The terrestrial feed, the successor to the original TVNC, is available over-the-air in Canada's far northern areas. It consists of flagship station CHTY-TV in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, semi-satellite CHWT-TV in Whitehorse, Yukon, and numerous low-powered rebroadcasters across the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut, Alberta, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.

On August 31, 2011, APTN shut down 39 low-power television repeaters across the Northwest Territories and Yukon, representing nearly half of its over-the-air transmitters. Although this discontinuation was conducted on the same day as Canada's over-the-air digital conversion deadline in certain mandatory markets, these over-the-air transmitters were not subject to this deadline. None of the mandatory conversion-to-digital markets were located the Northwest Territories or Yukon.

APTN's 2013 CRTC licence renewal featured zero over-the-air transmitters.

In November 2016, CEO Jean La Rose told the Winnipeg Free Press that APTN was negotiating carriage for a U.S. service. He noted that there was a high level of interest among Native Americans for programming relevant to their communities.

The Eastern Canada cable feed operated as the national feed until the Western Canada feed began service on October 2, 2006.

APTN is licensed as a national network by the CRTC, thus putting it on par with CBC Television, Radio-Canada and TVA. Since APTN's relaunch as a national network in 1999, all Canadian cable and satellite television providers have been required to include it in their basic service. However, many cable companies outside the Arctic place it above channel 60 on their systems, rendering it inaccessible to older cable-ready television sets that do not go above channel 60. The CRTC considered requiring cable companies to move APTN to a lower channel, but decided in 2005 that it would not do so.

In 2019, the channel launched APTN Lumi, a streaming service distributing APTN programming on the internet and streaming television devices.

APTN offers a variety of programming related to Aboriginal peoples, including documentaries, news magazines, dramas, entertainment specials, children's series, movies, sports events, educational programs and more. APTN's network programming is c. 56% English, 16% French, and 28% Aboriginal languages.

Programs which have aired on APTN include:

• APTN National News
• APTN Contact
• Arbor Live!
• Bingo and a Movie
• Blackstone
• Bro'Town
• Bordertown
• By The Rapids
• The Candy Show
• Cashing In
• Caution: May Contain Nuts
• Chuck and the First Peoples Kitchen
• Cooking With the Wolfman
• Dr. Savannah: Wild Rose Vet
• The Deerskins
• Delmer & Marta
• DJ Burnt Bannock
• First Contact
• Finding Our Talk: A Journey Through Aboriginal Languages, the world's first series in Mohawk language, three seasons (2001, 2002, 2009)
• Friday Night Flick
• Fugget About It
• Future History
• Gespe'gewa'gi: The Last Land
• Guides and Gurus
• Guilt Free Zone
• Hard Rock Medical
• Icons
• Medicine Woman
• Mixed Blessings
• Moccasin Flats
• Mohawk Girls
• My TV
• Native New Yorker
• North of 60
• Northern Exposure
• One With Nature
• La piqure
• Queen of the Oil Patch
• Querencia
• Quest Out West: Wild Food
• Rabbit Fall
• Rez Bluez
• Secret History of the Wild West
• The Sharing Circle
• Shortland Street
• Skindigenous
• Storytellers in Motion
• Treaty Road
• Tribal
• Warriors: TKO
• Wentworth
• Wild Archaeology
• Yukon Harvest

Children's programming

APTN airs children's programming, primarily as part of the APTN Kids block and branding.

Original programming

• Anaana's Tent
• Anash and the Legacy of the Sun-Rock
• Animism: The Gods' Lake
• Artie the Ant aka The Adventures of Artie the Ant
• Bizou
• CG Kids
• Chic Choc
• Doggy Day School
• The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon (both English and French dubs)
• The Eggs
• Fire Quest
• Fruity Tales
• Guardians Evolution
• Inuk
• Kagagi: The Raven
• La Crosse Goals
• Lil Glooscap and the Legends of Turtle Island
• The Link
• Little Bear
• Louis Says
• Missy Milly
• Mouki
• Nehiyawetan
• The New Adventures of Lucky Luke
• Planet Echo
• Qanurli
• The Raccoons
• Raven Tales
• renegadepress.com
• Road Scholars
• Stories of Our Elders
• Takuginai
• Tamanevugut
• Tiga Talk
• Tipi Tales
• The Nature Show
• Total Drama: Pahkitew Island
• Wapos Bay
• Wawatay Kids TV
• Wumpa's World
• Wakanheja
• Yvon of the Yukon

Sports programming

On March 24, 2019, tying in with English-language coverage originating on-location from the Enoch Cree Nation reserve outside of Edmonton, APTN simulcast a Sportsnet-produced NHL game between the Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes with commentary in Plains Cree, as part of the Rogers Hometown Hockey package. On December 13, 2019, APTN and Rogers announced that they would broadcast six Hometown Hockey games per-season in the language over the next three years. After a hiatus, the broadcasts returned in 2022 during the 2021–22 NHL season, with most of the games now drawn from Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts.

In March 2008, APTN launched a high definition channel known as APTN HD; initially, the HD feed was a straight simulcast of APTN's Eastern cable feed, complying with the requirement that a specialty channel's HD simulcast must be 95% identical in programming and scheduling to its standard-definition feeds. In May 2017, the CRTC amended APTN's license so that APTN HD's programming would no longer necessarily have to mirror the scheduling of the SD feeds, as long as 95% of its programming had aired at some point on one of APTN's SD feeds. The network argued that this change would allow it more flexibility in scheduling programming on APTN HD to reach a broader audience.

On June 14, 2017, a subsidiary of APTN, First Peoples Radio Inc. (FPR), was granted licences by the CRTC to operate radio stations in Toronto and Ottawa aimed at urban Indigenous populations in those cities. The Ottawa station will broadcast on 95.7 FM and the Toronto station will use 106.5 FM. Both frequencies had previously been allocated to Aboriginal Voices Radio which had its licenses revoked in 2015. FPR had also applied for licenses in Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver but the CRTC granted these to other applicants.

First Peoples Radio Inc had originally announced that its two radio stations, CFPT-FM in Toronto and CFPO-FM in Ottawa, were to go on the air by June 2018 but later delayed its soft launch until October 24, 2018. FPR will produce and share programming with the Missinipi Broadcasting Corporation in Saskatchewan and Native Communications Incorporated in Manitoba and is also in talks with the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society, which has been granted radio licenses in Edmonton and Calgary, and Northern Native Broadcasting (Terrace), which operates an Indigenous radio station in Terrace, British Columbia, and has been granted a license to operate a radio station in Vancouver, about potential programming partnerships.

The stations first went on the air on October 24, 2018 at noon, branded as Elmnt FM.

APTN is working towards launching a similar outlet, tentatively titled All Nations Network, in the United States. The network has already aired works produced in the United States, such as the full-length documentary film Skydancer, directed by Katja Esson, about the community of Akwesasne and its ironworkers. It was aired on both APTN and PBS in the United States in October 2012, after winning awards at film festivals.

• CBC North
• World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network
• Aboriginal Canadian personalities

APTN will avoid stereotypes and clichés when they choose advertisers.