For over 40 years PAW Media and Communications has been working with local communities across the Tanami Desert to create unique Aboriginal media in language and according to local cultural protocols, capturing history and culture for future generations.
We have grown into a successful and thriving media hub that continues to create distinctive Indigenous content, providing employment and training opportunities for Indigenous peoples across the Northern Territory.
Our 8PAW Radio department services 13 remote Indigenous communities, producing shows, creating content and broadcasting local music on radio, streaming and podcast services.
There are 10 Remote Indigenous Broadcasting Studios (RIBS) spanning a 140,000km radius across the Tanami Desert where community-based presenters broadcast in language their favourite songs, tell stories and provide up to date community messaging and news.
Yuendumu has a strong music culture with the PAW Music studio a thriving hub of daily activity where local and travelling Yapa musicians come to record, mix and master their albums.
PAW Music has recorded respected bands such as Rising Wind Band, Desert Mulga Band, Karrku Reggae Band, KM Band, Ripple Effect Band and hip-hop sensation Eju.
Our Community Video department produces video content for distribution to ICTV and NITV as well as online film platforms such as Vimeo, YouTube and InDigiTube and social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
PAW Video has produced culturally significant documentaries such as Coniston, Aboriginal Rules, Yarripirri’s Journey and Nyarrpararla Malaju and continues to capture important, time sensitive stories.
Our Language and Cultural centre manages and maintains the Warlpiri Archive and plays an important role in holding culturally significant or sensitive videos, photos and artefacts in our digital and physical archive.
We are governed by a Warlpiri, Pintubi and Anmatjerre Board made up of 9 members and are one of only eight Remote Indigenous Media Organisations (RIMOs) in Australia.
Warlpiri Media Association was established in 1983 as a pirate TV station.
In 2006 we became incorporated and known as Warlpiri Media Aboriginal Corporation, trading under the name ‘PAW Media and Communications, to better reflect our services to the Pintubi, Anmatjerre and Warlpiri nations.
In the early 1980s, before television was accessible to remote Australia, residents of remote Aboriginal communities began experimenting with video production by creating and producing local content.
Yuendumu community quickly became interested in recording stories that local people were interested in telling and listening to and early video production activities began at the Warlpiri Literature Centre, which in 1983 became Warlpiri Media Association.
Dr Eric Michaels, an American anthropologist who came to Yuendumu to undertake research on Aboriginal media, began working with Kurt (Leonard) Japanangka Granites and Francis Jupurrurla Kelly, and it was these three men who acted as a catalyst for the development of a distinctively Warlpiri approach to video.
Warlpiri Media’s establishment coincided with the federal government’s plans to launch the first Australian owned satellite, AUSSAT, which would bring national television to remote Australia for the first time.
When AUSSAT was in its planning stages, community members in Yuendumu began to express concern at the impact that mainstream television and radio would have on their communities.
They felt that mainstream television and radio would dilute language and culture as younger generations were introduced to westernised TV and advertising.
Darby Jampijinpa Ross, Francis Jupurrula Kelly and Kurt Japanangka Granites spoke at meetings about the needs of Aboriginal people in regard to television coming to Yuendumu.
They spoke about fighting fire with fire, and the need for local Aboriginal communities to make their own media, as well as manage the content entering their communities.
At Yuendumu local video production was already in motion and videos produced by Warlpiri Media were circulated on videotape, which was expensive and unsatisfactory and as a result Kurt Japanangka Granites proposed that a local narrowcast television station be established as well.
In February 1985 the Yuendumu Social Club donated $8,000 from profits from the community store to build and equip a low-powered television station, our very own “Pirate” TV.
The station, known as Channel 4, began broadcasting in April 1985 over limited hours during the day and some evenings and showed live interviews, activities from the school and pre-recorded material.
As the service was broadcast at irregular hours, word of impending broadcasts would be spread by both word of mouth and the playing of music for 30 minutes prior to commencement.
The Yuendumu community took its desire for cultural TV into its own hands and continued to broadcast as a pirate TV station with a licence granted in late 1985.
The deployment of AUSSAT involved the establishment of a Remote Commercial Television Service and CAAMA was successful in its tender application launching Imparja Television in late 1988.
Warlpiri Media Association is a shareholder in Imparja as a result of its leading role in the development of Aboriginal media in Central Australia.
In 2001 at the 3rd Remote Video Festival in Umuwa, South Australia, Warlpiri Media, PY Media, PAKAM, CAAMA and Ngaanyatjarra Media established Indigenous Community Television (ICTV).
Content from across remote communities provided a unique TV service, and ICTV rapidly became one of the most popular channels in RIBS communities.
Warlpiri Media continued expanding its media services with the PAW Radio Networks creation in 2001 which facilitates radio in 10 Remote Indigenous Broadcasting Studios (RIBS) and 3 re-transmission sites.
Through the establishment of the PAW Radio Network, Warlpiri Media Association became increasingly associated with communities in the Tanami area and in 2006 Warlpiri Media took on the trading name of PAW Media and Communications to reflect its work across Pintubi, Anmatjere and Warlpiri lands.
In 2008, due to changes in funding, PAW Media ceased TV broadcasts and live TV production however we still continue to create local video productions for airplay on ICTV and other national broadcasters.
PAW, under its Anmatjerre, Warlpiri and Pintubi governance, continues to play a significant role in the maintenance of Indigenous languages and stories.
PAW is governed by the CATSI act and registered under ORIC.
Registered charity with ACNC
PAW Media
Lot 421 Conniston Rd,
Yuendumu, NT 0872
(08) 8993 7500
PAW Media acknowledges the Pintubi, Anmatjere and Warlpiri people as the traditional owners and prevailing custodians of the lands on which PAW works. We pay our respect to their Elders, past present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded.
