Ehara i te mea he mea hou te mātakitaki i te pouaka whakaata, kua roa tātou e mahi ana i tērā mahi. Heoi, nō ngā tau 1980 ka tīmata te kitea o ētahi hōtaka reo Māori i te pouaka whakaata.
Ahakoa tēnei, i koni atu i te 20 tau te roa o te tohetohe i ngā kōti me te tuku kerēme ki te Taraipiunara o Waitangi, pēnei i te kerēme a Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo, kia whakaaehia tētahi teihana motuhake e aro kau ana ki te ao Māori me te reo Māori.
Nāwai rā ka whakarewaina a Whakaata Māori i te 28 o Māehe, i te tau 2004. Ka hurō te nuinga o te iwi Māori i te rongo i te reo Māori e rere ana i te mata o te pouaka whakaata.
Ka ara ake he teihana tuarua i te tau 2008, ko Te Reo tōna ingoa, ā, ka whakapāhotia katoatia ki te reo Māori. I ēnei rā ka kotahi me te haurua miriona tāngata i te marama te tokomaha o ngā kaimātakitaki – koia tētahi hautoru o te taupori o Aotearoa!
E waimarie ana tātou ki te rongo i tō tātou reo taketake i te pouaka whakaata me te mātakitaki hoki i ngā hōtaka e whakaatu ana i ō te Māori whakaaro me ō te Māori kare ā-roto.
Kāore i tua atu i te mātakitaki i a SpongeBob Tarau Porowhā me Dora Mātātoa i roto i te reo Māori, nē?
Kia kaha te reo Māori!
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ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Do you know the history of Māori TV?
People have been watching TV since its invention in the late 1920s but watching TV in te reo Māori hasn’t been around that long.
While some Māori programmes have been available since the 1980s, it took another 20+ years of fighting legal battles and claims to the Waitangi Tribunal, such as a claim by Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo (the Wellington Māori Language Board) in 1985, to establish a TV channel dedicated to te ao and te reo Māori. Finally, on 28 March 2004, Māori Television was launched. It was a bilingual channel using subtitles, as most Māori were non-fluent speakers and the TV channel wanted to include all Māori as their target audience – regardless of their level of te reo.
Most people were thrilled to hear the Māori language on screen, and the channel attracted around 300,000 viewers each month. A second channel “Te Reo” was added a few years later in 2008, broadcasting shows entirely in te reo Māori. The audience has now grown to over 1.5 million viewers per month – that’s about a third of Aotearoa’s population! Not only are we able to hear our indigenous language of Aotearoa, but it also relates to how Māori think and feel about matters not only here in our country, but even in Australia or further away countries and continents.
Last year, in June 2022, it was given its new name “Whakaata Māori”. Pretty cool to watch Spongebob Tarau Porowhā and Dora Mātātoa in te reo Māori, isn’t it? And, if you’re travelling, you can even watch Māori TV online – no matter where you are in the world! So, the 28th of March 2004 is quite a historic event, as the launch of Māori TV is one of the main reasons why you can hear te reo Māori spoken on TV. Kia kaha te reo Māori!
