How old ABC broadcasting equipment is helping Indigenous Community Television reach new audiences
Ash Renehan, second from left, with Indigenous Community TV's first outside broadcast van, made possible by ABC donated equipment. (Supplied)
Ashley Renehan had a dream of opening up the bush to wider audiences.
Ash is well known to ABC staff in Melbourne as a multi-skilled operator, lighting director and technical producer.
He left the ABC in 2020 to return to live on Country in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and began employment with Indigenous Community Television (ICTV).
His first task was to set up a studio.
Ash Renehan (right) oversees an Indigenous Community Television broadcast. (Supplied)
Ash joined the ICTV team at the perfect time as the broadcaster had just secured funding for a new outside broadcast truck.
Using the skills and experience he gained at the ABC, Ash took on the mammoth task of redesigning the truck to bring it in line with industry standards.
In the midst of the truck redesign, Ash saw a notification that the ABC was selling its OB Vans and associated equipment.
He reached out to his former colleagues to see if the ABC would be able to donate the retired equipment, knowing that having access to this equipment would enable him to teach other Aboriginal media workers about broadcasting with professional equipment.
Julianne Goss from ABC Commercial, based in Melbourne, was responsible for selling the ABC outside broadcast vans and equipment.
She connected with Ash and took on setting up the workflows and processes to enable the ABC to donate decommissioned equipment to Indigenous media organisations.
In November 2022, Julianne obtained the final approval to donate enough retired equipment to ICTV to cover a multitude of multi-cam outside broadcasts.
This included cameras and accessories, lenses, tripods, fibre cables, audio mixers, audio accessories, camera control units, remote control panels and more.
The equipment, worth around $56,000, was sourced from decommissioned items that the ABC has no further use for.
Julianne and her team went above and beyond to get the equipment palleted for ICTV, which arranged for a courier to pick up from Melbourne and deliver to their headquarters in Mparntwe (Alice Springs).
"Being able to have an impact on my own community with the skills I gained at the ABC was always a dream of mine," says ICTV programming and production manager Ashley Renehan.
"I'm more than excited about how this donation from the ABC will help ICTV to open up the bush to wider audiences, who will get to see more of the amazing events that take place out in remote Indigenous communities."
ICTV staged its first outside broadcast on July 15 from the Yajilarra Festival 2023 in Fitzroy Crossing, WA. (Supplied)
Ash then spent seven months using the donated equipment to fit out the ICTV OB truck – the first for ICTV.
In July 2023, a small ICTV team embarked on a six-day round trip in the new truck, traversing most of the Northern Territory into Western Australia to live broadcast Yajilarra Festival 2023 in Fitzroy Crossing.
In partnership with Pilbara and Kimberley Aboriginal Media (PAKAM), Ash was finally able to train other Aboriginal media workers using the equipment he had operated for many years at the ABC.
The live broadcast of Yajilarra Festival was successfully streamed on ICTV's satellite TV service and website.
"Since Yajilarra Festival in July, our ICTV OB truck has gone on to live broadcast Bush Bands Bash, the Central Australian Football League's Community competition finals series and the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress' 50 Years Strong concert in Mparntwe," says Ash.
"We are looking forward to bringing more bush events to screens all across the country in 2024."
The workflow developed around this donation will be used for future donations of ABC decommissioned equipment to other First Nations Media organisations across Australia and then will be extended to include other Australian and Pacific community media outlets and broadcasters.
"Watching this project come to life, from the arrival of the equipment to seeing it in action with Ashley training other young Indigenous people, has been incredible," says ICTV general manager Laurie May.
"That people can have access to Ashley's skill set and the former ABC equipment has meant that this training can be accomplished here, on Country — taking our services to a new level that hasn't previously been available for us and remote communities."
Djarindjin Community Media's Darryl Chaquebor (left) and Petha Shoveller (centre) getting set up to broadcast from Fitzroy Crossing with assistance from ICTV's Will Thomson. (ABC NEWS)
As head of ABC Indigenous, Diversity and Inclusion, I co-lead the ABC's strategic partnership with First Nations Media Australia (of which ICTV is a member) with my colleague Bronwyn Purvis and we welcome inquiries about donations of decommissioned equipment, furniture and office items.
The donations to ICTV have enabled First Nations media organisations around the country to increase their own production capacity, and I am so pleased to have been part of that.