Sally Jackson
The Australian

NATIONAL Indigenous TV plans to start carrying advertising in six months and is also lobbying for more funding and access to free-to-air spectrum in an ambitious bid to expand and improve its service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers.

The network's original four-year funding arrangement ends on June 30 and it is seeking a "reasonable" increase in its $15 million a year allocation in the next federal budget, says Terri Janke, who replaced Larissa Behrendt as the network's chairwoman in July.

NITV's request comes at the same time as the federal government is being criticised for gifting $250 million of licence-fee rebates to the three free-to-air commercial networks, which have to do nothing more for the money than meet their existing requirement to broadcast at least 55 per cent local content.

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