SBS is planning to overhaul its news and current affairs programs NITV News and Living Black, the only dedicated Indigenous news bulletins in the country, two years after taking over the National Indigenous Television service.
A report in New Matilda on Wednesday said the flagship NITV News daily bulletin would be axed in June.
New Matilda reported that insiders believed NITV National News would be taken completely off air and that at least one prominent Aboriginal presenter was expected to resign over the changes.
A spokeswoman for SBS did not deny the veracity of the report but told Guardian Australia the changes were about “improving the accessibility of NITV news programming”.
“Indigenous news is a critical part of the NITV offering and its commitment to raising awareness of Indigenous news and issues,” the spokeswoman for SBS, Jess Harris, said. “There are no plans to reduce the amount of NITV news programming.”
“What we are doing is looking at ways to ensure that our Indigenous news programming reflects audiences’ consumption patterns and enables more Australians to access the news, right across the nation and on the platforms available to them.
“This has been an extensive and ongoing process involving the teams at SBS news and current affairs, NITV and Living Black and supported by research with our audiences.”
Harris said Living Black, Australia’s longest-running Indigenous current affairs program, would return to air in April with “a slight change to format”.
But the opposition communications spokesman, Jason Clare, and opposition Indigenous affairs spokesman, Shayne Neumann, blamed the mooted changes on the Coalition government’s cuts to SBS funding in the budget.
“Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull have ripped $53.7m out of the SBS budget since the election and now it seems that the only national Aboriginal television news service in the country will become the latest victim of this lie,” Clare and Neumann said in a joint statement.
“NITV National News plays an important role in raising the issues, telling the stories, and celebrating the achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
“A well-resourced Indigenous media sector is vital for the Australian media landscape and Labor calls on SBS and NITV to rule out the cancellation of this important program.”
NITV began as a pay TV channel in 2007 before being absorbed by SBS on free-to-air television (Channel 34) in December 2012.
The news bulletin has grown from five minutes to a live 30-minute broadcast five days a week with newsreader Natalie Ahmat.
NITV News’s executive producer, Malarndirri McCarthy, won the journalist of the year award at the Multicultural and Indigenous Media awards last year.
