The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has granted the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network’s (APTN) proposal to consolidate its feeds and increase its wholesale rate.

The Commission issued the decision on Tuesday (May 14), which will see the Indigenous broadcaster’s three regional feeds (APTN West, East and North) and its HD national feed streamlined into two HD feeds: APTN and APTN Languages. The latter channel will be dedicated to Indigenous-language programming.

In addition, the CRTC has approved the broadcaster’s request to increase its mandatory wholesale rate from $0.35 to $0.38. The changes will take effect on Sept. 1.

“This is a key moment in the history of Indigenous Peoples, and APTN has a fundamental role to play in protecting and revitalizing our languages,” said APTN CEO Monika Ille (pictured) in a statement. “The CRTC’s decision is an important one and reflects recent amendments made to the Broadcasting Act to place Indigenous languages on a more equal footing with English and French in Canadian broadcasting.”

APTN‘s current broadcast licence was given an administrative renewal until Aug. 31, 2026, while the Commission continues its work to modernize Canada’s broadcasting framework.

The CRTC will amend the conditions of licence to stipulate that APTN Languages must broadcast a minimum of 100 hours of Indigenous-language programming, a minimum of five hours and 30 minutes of news and current affairs programming in French or English, and at least one French-language news broadcast per week.

The news and current affairs conditions also apply to the national APTN feed, as well as a minimum of 20 hours of French-language programming per broadcast week.

The Commission said there were more than 240 interventions submit for the application, with the majority in favour of the proposal. The only dissent was from BDUs arguing that a wholesale rate increase should be considered after the ongoing regulatory review has finished. However, the CRTC concluded that “the benefits to the broadcasting system and Canadians outweigh delaying APTN‘s application.”

This story was originally published on Playback