Uvagut TV Celebrates First Anniversary As First all-Inuktut TV Channel

On Monday, January 18, 2021 Nunavut Independent Television (NITV) made history when it launched Canada's first all-Inuktut TV channel.

Uvagut TV ("Our" TV) started out broadcasting 168 hours a week of Inuit-produced culture, arts, movies and information programming available nationally to more than 610,000 customers across the country. Viewers around the world are able to stream Uvagut TV online 24/7 here.

Breaking ground as the first all Indigenous-language channel and, with APTN, only the second Indigenous television network service among 762 broadcasting in Canada, Uvagut TV increases total Indigenous-language television programming available to Canadian audiences.
Uvagut TV has been built on the hard work of countless people over the past four decades who believed it was possible to deliver Inuktut television to Inuit audiences to preserve, promote and revitalize Inuit culture and language.

"Thank you to everyone who have supported Uvagut TV, this first year would not have been so successful without your help! Elders are proud to see our language being represented. Medical travel patients and escorts who have to travel to the south are given the opportunity to feel close to home. Some Inuit who may have forgotten how to speak Inuktitut are given that chance to relearn Inuktuk. Together we are restoring part of our identity," said Lucy Tulugarjuk on the occasion of the station's one year anniversary.

Uvugat TV broadcasts programs by Inuvialuit Communications Society; shows by Isuma, Arnait Video, Artcirq, Kingulliit and Taqqut Productions; award-winning Inuktut movies like Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner; classic series, documentaries and new programs like Silakut Live From the Floe Edge and Tunnganarnik broadcasting live from Nunavut communities and the remote arctic wilderness.

Uvagut TV also provided live coverage of important civic events such as leadership debates, appointment of Mary Simon as the Governor General and the Nunavut Impact Review Board Public Hearings for the Baffinland Iron Mine Phase 2 proposal, bringing vital transparent coverage of these topic live to Inuit, national and global audiences.