New society plans educational TV channel for Nunavut

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission is looking to see more dedicated educational programming on basic cable packages. Thats exactly what the TV Nunavut Education Broadcast Societywants to provide.

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TV Nunavut was formed earlier this year with that goal in mind.

"We'd like to have that channel up and running and we'd like to make sure that would be a part of what they're calling 'small basic' or 'skinny basic' cable packages, because ultimately if you're going to have a television channel you want to make sure that people can watch the channel," said Debbie Brisebois, executive director of IBC and a board member of TV Nunavut.

On Friday, TV Nunavut chair Charlotte DeWolff gave a presentation to the CRTCas part of the hearings in Ottawa called Lets Talk TV. Brisebois was also there.

We were more than happy, said Brisebois.

I mean, they essentially agreed with us 100 per cent, and actually mentioned that they hope to see an actual license application from this channel.

Briseboishopes the new channel will be up and running sometime next year.

TV Nunavut is made up of a group of partners, including theAjjiit Nunavut Media Association, IBC, the Nunavut independent TV production community and Nunavut Film.

Talks began around forming the group in 2012.

The CRTC's hearing wraps up on Friday.