Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

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… including through the Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service. NITV is an important platform for the celebration of the unique languages and culture of Indigenous Australians, produced by Indigenous Australians, and now available to every Australian household.

The reason I mention this is in the context of not only NITV but also the future of community television in this country. As the CTV sector recently found out, the minister has determined that they will be moved online—that is the platform for them. The reality is—and this is what the sector is saying as well—that there is an acceptance that that is where they need to go, but to be rushed into it without the amount of preparation and support they need is a very detrimental thing. That is not specifically why I raise this.

One of the biggest gripes that the CTV sector has is this apparent obsession with ratings as the only indicia of the value of their content. As the sector pointed out, there are many networks with shows that have under 6,000 viewer ratings points. Unfortunately, some NITV programs regularly feature in those low ratings—things like SARL All Stars Carnival, Maori TV's Native Affairsand NITV News Week In Review. A lot of these end up rating lower than the threshold at which some in this place think should be the threshold of support. But no-one would be suggesting, would they, member for Lingiari, that that is the sole criterion by which you should judge the value of any programs?

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