Iqaluit (Oct 16/06) - It's one of those good news/bad news situations.

As of Aug. 31, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network is moving its master control facility from the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation's location in Ottawa to Iqaluit.

Inuit Broadcasting Corporation president Okalik Eegeesiak cuts the cake during the 20th anniversary for the IBC kids' show Takuginai at the Arctic Winter Games Arena in Iqaluit. The corporation hasn't been celebrating APTN's recent move into the North. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

This will allow the network to include stories from Iqaluit into its national news broadcasts. "We will have an Iqaluit bureau open in about a month or so," said APTN CEO Jean LeRose. "That bureau will provide news coverage on that region that will be on APTN national news."

However, the move presents resource and programming difficulties for IBC.

"The relocation of the facility is not a good thing for us," said IBC executive director Debbie Brisebois.

She said the move will require a degree of restructuring for IBC, one of APTN's major producers of Inuktitut programming. It will also postpone the new season of Qanuq Isumavit, the group's popular Inuktitut-language phone-in show.

According to Brisebois, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

"The big issue is the decreasing amount of Inuktitut programming on APTN," she said. "Every year, for one reason or another, there's less and less Inuit programming."

"We understand that APTN are trying to serve a lot of people in a lot of languages, but we are becoming a lot less visible on the schedule, North and South."

While Brisebois acknowledged that southern producers were taking up some of that time, she was most critical of the increased presence of Hollywood movies on the APTN schedule.

"It started off a couple of years ago, once a week," she said. "Now it's several nights a week and weekends."

LeRose said the creation of the bureau followed a series of a consultations around the North.

"What people said is what they really want is to bring the Northern feed in line with audience up North," he said. "At the same time they wanted to be entertained."

"I think from the perspective of the North what we are doing is exactly what the audience has asked us to do."

"That's their spin," Brisebois said in response.

"There's the news bureau and people wanted that, that's true.

"However, what they really wanted was more Inuktitut programming. That's not being delivered."