‘IT WAS MOMENTOUS’
APTN celebrates 20 years of bringing Indigenous culture to Canadian small screens
Jean La Rose remembers the exact day that APTN launched in Canada. It was Sept. 1, 1999: Nunavut had just recently become Canada’s newest territory, with a mostly Inuit population, and APTN was the world’s first broadcaster to air programming by and for Indigenous peoples.
“It was basically one of those moments where you just sat there and had a good cry because it was momentous, the realization of something that many of us held close as a dream,” says La Rose, APTN’S longtime CEO.
“We always knew that there needed to be a network that represented us, a network that was true to who we were and that allowed us to learn the technical skills to tell our stories. Now we could actually see ourselves and hear our stories.”
Twenty years later, the Winnipeg-based network has more than 11 million subscribers. There are several feeds (including for Eastern, Western, and Northern Canada, as well as an HD feed) plus two radio stations (Toronto and Ottawa).
The network has also won Canadian Screen Awards, World Indigenous Journalism Awards and Canadian Association of Journalists Awards, among others.
Still, for La Rose, it’s just nice to be seen. A citizen of the Abenaki First Nation of Odanak in Québec, he grew up in Ottawa watching but one person who looked like him on TV: Jean-paul Nolet, a CBC broadcaster who was also Abenaki.
“When he left the air in 1967, I think it was, then we disappeared. I never saw anyone else, other than the Indians — and I’m using the term loosely — that Hollywood had in movies. They were not Indigenous at all, just portrayed for the benefit of the movie,” he says.
“Only when Alanis Obomsawin started making movies (in the 1970s) we started seeing ourselves again, but being for the NFB, they were not wide market. Now with streaming you can watch them on the NFB website, but in the 1970s to see them you’d have to go and find out where it was screening.”
La Rose went on to study communications at the University of Ottawa/université Saint-paul, landed a government job, and eventually found work with the Assembly of First Nations.
Meanwhile, the push for Indigenous representation in media was getting stronger. In 1980, the CRTC issued the Therrien Committee Report, which said the government had a responsibility to support northern Indigenous peoples who wanted to develop their own media services.
“There was a need for a fair and exact portrayal of who we are, because everybody assumed at the time that being an Indian just meant being an Indian, and that was it. There was really not a distinction between First Nations, Inuit and Métis people,” says La Rose.
“There was also concern that our languages and culture were being eradicated rapidly by the growth of television across the country — especially the north, where all of a sudden the images of the south and all these different lifestyles appeared on TVS. People felt totally dislocated from that.”
After much lobbying and negotiating, Television Northern Canada (TVNC) launched in the territories and northern provinces in 1992, with La Rose helping to develop the programming grid.
Initially, the network mostly relied on National Film Board classics, offerings from the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program (NNBAP) and reruns of movies with an Indigenous actor tucked in there somewhere.
The bigger goal was to develop original children’s shows, comedies, newscasts and dramas. But by the middle of the decade, the network’s ambition started to chafe against government budget cuts.
Then, a breakthrough. In 1998, the CRTC finally approved plans for a national Indigenous network, which became APTN in 1999. The distribution model was unheard of: APTN would be a mandatory cable service carried across Canada but could also collect subscriber fees.
La Rose joined the network as CEO in 2002, and since then, the milestones have piled up. That year, APTN National News launched with the first Indigenous TV journalism team in the world. In 2008, the network established the arm’s-length production house Animiki See. In 2010, it was the world’s first official Indigenous broadcaster of the Olympics. And this year, APTN joined forces with Sportsnet to broadcast the first NHL game in Plains Cree.
“We’ve developed an industry that didn’t exist. We’ve helped establish producers that are now creating some exciting content that other broadcasters are seeking to obtain,” says La Rose.
He cites the APTN true-crime series Taken, about Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, which also aired on CBC.
Other crossover successes include gritty drama Blackstone, female-centred comedy Mohawk Girls, and cooking show Moosemeat & Marmalade.
“APTN has opened a lot of new doors to Indigenous people who didn’t have an opportunity before. Now the challenge is to take what we’ve created and follow the direction that the industry and audience is going — streaming, internet viewing, video on demand,” he says, citing the recently launched streaming service APTN lumi.
“Right now we’re limited to the Canada Media Fund, tax credits and labour credits from production. What we’re looking to do with lumi is create a new stream of revenue that will allow us to put more money into programming and create new programs,” he says.
“We’d like to be on something like Apple TV+ or Amazon Prime to get worldwide exposure, but that’s a whole different challenge and a lot of costs. For now, within our production community, the challenge is: Where do we go, and how do we get the funds to create the programming we need to?”
It’s a challenge that, for the first time in 17 years, won’t fall to La Rose.
His last day at APTN is Dec. 31, and then Monika Ille will officially replace him as CEO. She’s worked at APTN for 16 years, most recently as the executive director of programming and scheduling.
“I thought it was time to bring in someone who’d have new ideas and concepts. At the same time, part of me was saying, ‘I don’t really want to leave because I love what I’m doing,’” says La Rose.
“But it was one of those things where you have to use reason over passion and say, ‘No, the time is right for someone else to take the helm.’
“The challenges are exciting and the opportunities are there for someone else coming into the role. They’ll be in a very good position to move the network forward.”