IMPARJA TELEVISION

Imparja Television plays a central role in the region and in the town of Alice Springs today. Over 50 people are employed full-time at the station in Leichhardt Terrace, most recruited locally. Our talented commercial production unit produces high quality advertisements for the businesses of central and remote Australia to enable them to promote their services and products. The week-nightly news and weather service is produced by a small and tightly focussed team of journalists, camera operators and presenters, who provide an essential information service to our widely dispersed audience. The implementation of the Imparja Aboriginalisation policy is successful. This policy is important in providing opportunities and career development for Aboriginal people within the media industry. Imparja's payroll in 2004 includes over 43% of indigenous people. As well as indigenous and locally produced programs, Imparja purchases much of its programming from the Nine and Ten Networks, enabling a lively and varied programming schedule with most of the highest rating programs to be broadcast to an audience of over 430,000 people. Through our access to digital satellite capacity, Imparja also broadcasts a second channel, currently named ‘Channel 31'. Channel 31 broadcasts quality indigenous programming, news, and community information to the remote, outlying communities throughout and beyond the Imparja footprint. This includes 82 of the 100 BRACS communities in Australia. At present, the channel delivers ten hours a day of programming, over half of which is in indigenous language, helping to ensure and support the positive promotion of Indigenous culture and values, a core Imparja philosophy. This channel also provides remote community video producers an audience to showcase and view their efforts, giving a solid purpose to continue to develop their production skills. Intensive planning is underway for the predicted legislative changes for a move to digital broadcasting in remote and regional areas of Australia. Imparja is looking forward to a positive future with growth and opportunities. It remains a blueprint for Aboriginal self-determination and fully supports the reconciliation process.