Appearing before the committee in Parliament, BAZ chairman Tafataona Mahoso and chief executive officer Obert Muganyura reiterated their call that the current infrastructure in Zimbabwe did not allow more players to enter the broadcasting sector. BAZ says this is because they have no capacity to’ monitor’ new broadcasters.
But a study carried out by government two years ago said that the country had the capacity to licence an additional four television stations and 31 commercial radio stations.
Opening up the airwaves is one of the issues agreed to by all parties in the Global Political Agreement (GPA). But this has not happened and the inclusive government has been under pressure from all media stakeholders to start this process. It is also an issue that has been raised by SADC and by President Zuma of South Africa, as chief facilitator in the GPA discussions.
A month ago BAZ did call for applications for two commercial radio licences but there are concerns that this call is just a politically motivated move to hoodwink SADC into believing there is some movement on electronic media reforms. There were 15 applicants, including the state owned Zimbabwe Newspapers Group.
Media advocacy group MISA Zimbabwe, has long advocated for the licencing of community radio stations. They say that unlike commercial radio stations, which are profit-driven in terms of their programming, community broadcasting is by the community for the community.
‘While this does not necessarily mean community radios operate at a loss, the point to note is that they are not established for the purpose of making profit. This means that their programming is not saturated by adverts, state propaganda or elitist ideas.
Community stations are designed to promote values of the community, pursuing the social, economic and political agendas of the community, which may be defined geographically or by common interests,’ a statement from MISA said on Friday.
There are a number of community and church radio stations in Zimbabwe that would be ready to start broadcasting immediately.
There has also been no discussion on the future for the state broadcaster, ZBC. As Zimbabwe’s ‘public’ broadcaster it needs to be urgently reformed to make it a truly public and not state broadcaster.
Post published in: News