APTN was previously carried on terrestrial television, particularly in Northern Canada and the Inuit communities of Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec.

The committee recommended measures to enable northern native people to use broadcasting to support their languages and cultures.

In January 1987, Canadian aboriginal and Northern broadcasters met in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories to form a non-profit consortium to establish a Pan-Northern television distribution service.

The network officially launched on over-the-air signals to the Canadian territories and far northern areas of the provinces on January 21, 1992.

The network argued that this change would allow it more flexibility in scheduling programming on APTN HD to reach a broader audience.

APTN stated that the new structure would allow it to significantly increase its output of Indigenous-language programming to as many as 157.5 hours per-week, and provide more airtime to language groups that were underrepresented on its existing schedule.

The channel also occasionally broadcasts mainstream feature films; in 2002, the network experimented with adding a sweepstakes known as Bingo and a Movie during commercial breaks.

[9][10] APTN primarily broadcasts programming produced in English, French, and Indigenous languages, such as Cree and Inuktitut.

Original programming On March 24, 2019, APTN simulcast a Sportsnet-produced NHL game between the Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes with commentary in Plains Cree, as part of the Rogers Hometown Hockey package.

[35][36] On December 13, 2019, APTN and Rogers announced that they would broadcast six Hometown Hockey games per-season in the language over the next three years.

On August 31, 2011, APTN shut down 39 low-power television repeaters across the Northwest Territories and Yukon, representing nearly half of its over-the-air transmitters.

[44] In November 2016, CEO Jean La Rose told the Winnipeg Free Press that APTN was negotiating carriage for a U.S. service.

APTN launched a similar outlet, All Nations Network, in the United States, which has been under the umbrella of Dadan Sivunivut since 2019.

[55] APTN had previously aired works produced in the United States, such as the full-length documentary film Skydancer, directed by Katja Esson, about the community of Akwesasne and its ironworkers.