“The Imparja Make a Difference Program will allocate 10% of your advertising dollars towards a community project, making a tangible difference to the lives of those in many remote communities.”
The push from SBS/NITV for 3% of media spend to find its way to Indigenous media is both welcome and supported. We also appreciate how difficult it could be to justify that expenditure level, but we would ask for your support with this initiative through allocation of share and for those who don’t support this market to please reconsider. We all understand some of the challenges facing Indigenous Australians, but how does your 3% make a real difference? We don’t need the revenue going back into the Government’s consolidated revenues, we need it to support the community broadcasters and to deliver benefits to the communities themselves.
We need some of the revenue to hit the ground and deliver a true and lasting legacy for the underprivileged who live a life that most of us would not accept, nor endure. Imparja Television is 100% Aboriginal owned and located in Alice Springs. We are an affiliate of the Nine Network who have been wonderful business partners and supporters of our endeavours.
The company was formed on the smell of an oily rag and became functional through grants and donations from Government and supporters, first going to air in 1988. Our shareholders have never taken a dividend from the business, and we are a registered not-for-profit organisation with all excess funds used to support a broad social platform which is unique by comparison to any other Australian Broadcaster.
“one of the largest broadcast footprints in the world”
Our license area is huge, being some 3.6 million square kilometres, through 6 States and Territories, making it one of the largest broadcast footprints in the world. We have 28 retransmission sites and around 400,000 VAST DTH viewers inclusive of digital in full. This gives us access to approximately 1 million viewers. We also have as partners in this project a group of community radio stations through out our footprint. These stations are community radio, and advertising content is basically sponsorship blocks which provide a clean messaging path. The community radio operations are integral in the bush, as well as making headway in the capital cities as people thirst for knowledge about our First Nations peoples. These operators are highly supportive of the Imparja Make A Difference Program and are offering the same incentive to support the communities. They exist on grant and funding opportunities, so the chance to drive real revenues into these areas is a significant opportunity to make a real difference. They perform a huge service to the community in which they operate, and they cover all aspects of community life and allow the sharing of culture in a number of forms to take place. As an East Coast city boy who went bush, trust me when I say, it’s difficult to comprehend what life is like on a community and how important the media is, making life just a little bit more bearable.
So how do you make a real difference?
“an outcome that will allow you to make a difference to the First Nations peoples who live in remote Australia”
Firstly, let me state the obvious, each of the entities within the group will benefit from your supporting the project, and given that they are all community or NFP entities, your money means something to the business and the communities in which they operate. The big difference however is that 10% of your advertising dollars will go towards making a real difference to the communities that you decide to support through a project. The reality is that whilst spend is important, what happens with the dollars is more important in terms of delivering a true outcome, an outcome that will allow you to make a difference to the First Nations peoples who live in remote Australia in conditions that you could not comprehend.
How it works?
If you decide that the program fits with your company’s social platform or reconciliation plan, then we will provide you either as a client, agency or buying group, a list of community projects that are deliverable, practical and that will make a difference. What sort of projects will make a difference, is a broad question and the answers vary by community.
A couple of examples:
1. It is well known that many Aboriginal people have kidney issues and in some cases that must travel 2,000 kilometres to undergo treatment.
Possible Funding Opportunity: Where a community has a medical clinic, we can purchase a renal lifter for the community.
2. In the major centres around remote Australia we see the outcomes of dysfunctional family life, for numerous reasons, including alcohol. The truly sad outcome is that it’s often the kids who end up being hurt and sent to hospital. The hospitals in these town centres aren’t always flush with funds.
Possible Funding Opportunity: Sponsor the kids wards, paint the ward, brighten it up, put a basic library in, or set up games consoles, offering a more enjoyable environment for the victims.
3. On remote communities sport is important, but ongoing funding for a sport co-ordinator is not forthcoming.
Possible Funding Opportunity: Sponsor a co-ordinator for year, providing tangible opportunities and engagement in something which does not involve drugs, alcohol and antisocial
behaviour.
The opportunities to deliver something are vast and on that basis, we are asking the communities what they need and want. We are not telling them what we are prepared to give, which is real change from normal procedure.
Our goal is ensuring that clients see outcomes. We believe we can organise contact and visits if this is the desire of the sponsor group. Please note that these trips are drive-in drive-out, sleeping in swags and in real bush conditions.
Given that we are a commercial television broadcaster putting out the same pictures and content as the Nine Network yet we are a not-for-profit entity, trading in one of the toughest markets in the country, we still need to keep a balance between our social platform and our commercial realities.
Hence we are seeking an increase in revenue share, or if a client is so inclined an increase in spend, or even better new clients coming into the market. Being a satellite broadcaster you can well imagine the costs, so we don’t ask through profit aspirations but through basic survival needs.
Please feel free to discuss options with myself,
Alistair Feehan
CEO
Imparja Television Pty Ltd
(08) 895 01411
0408 345 888
alistair.feehan@imparja.com.au