Beyond Broadcasting: The Future of State-owned Broadcasters in Southern Africa

This report is a review of how digitisation is impacting on media in Southern Africa, and especially how the new digi-scape is impacting on state-owned broadcasters. It looks at current trends like digital migration, cellphone interaction, newsroom convergence, policy, economics, and new non-conventional media players. The purpose of this paper is to promote discussion on public broadcasting and broadcasting policy and regulation in Southern Africa, specifically in Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia, and South Africa. In doing so, it raises questions more that attempting to provide solutions. According to the report, there are complicated changes facing state-owned broadcasters in Southern Africa which are being shaped around the digitisation of production, distribution, and consumption of public interest news and current affairs.

The report grouped research finding into trends and challenges in three areas: (a) technology and new platforms, (b) the broader environment, (c) the meaning of the changes for the historical "project" of public service broadcasting, and for state-owned broadcasters in Southern Africa in coming years. The four country studies in this report each follow this structure in their presentation.

In each country’s sub-report, the first part (technology) reviews the landscape of media players in that given nation. It deals with who is doing what with public-interest content – within the mix of satellite-distributed, terrestrial, internet and cell-phone mass communication services. Attention is given to planning for Digital Migration. Also touched upon are the issues of audience participation, staff training, and Content Management Systems. The second part of each country study (environment) looks at regulation of digital communications, with an eye to public-interest licensing requirements. It also picks up on further aspects of the broader environment – such as whether the culture is conducive to convergence, how the changes affect government control, and where the youth fit in. Particularly important is economics: who provides, and who pays for, public interest communications. In the third part of each country chapter (future) the authors look at changing conceptions of public service in that nation, and reflect upon scenarios into the future.

In his preface, Professor Banda argues that there is still a need to continue the historic task of transforming government broadcasters into public service broadcasters, in line with the provisions of the Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression, as adopted by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. Further, he debates that in recent years it has mainly been the lack of political will of governments to relinquish political control which has prevented the transformation of state into truly public broadcasters. Banda points out that there are also new complications in the reform efforts to give African democracies the public broadcasting services they deserve.

According to the report, state-owned broadcasters increasingly exist in a context of many other broadcasters, which raises new questions about their role and business model in a pluralistic environment. Moreover, these – often hollow – giants in the African media landscape are now struggling to find money and capacity for Digital Migration, the shift of television to digital production, transmission, and reception. Not least, new technologies have brought non-traditional players into mass communications, and enabled audience participation as never before. Banda says that no state-owned broadcaster can continue as if it is business as usual. This publication is a snap-shot of the changing environment in four African democracies, with special focus on public interest communications.

The report mentions that digital migration will be more than just a more efficient transmission technology and a way to squeeze more TV channels onto the airwaves. However, it is going to be a lot more than that – and at the same time it is a change that in time could even be dwarfed by other changes, like unexpected technological transformation. Hence the report advises journalists and media institutions to be up-to-speed on all these issues to avoid being left behind.

The fact that public broadcasters in Southern Africa broadcast government service content in the lure of public service is pointed out. While these institutions have become formidable forces in contributing to – or at the other extreme, working to counter – progress in democracy and development, the study reveals that these institutions have become monopolies in their respective countries even when other broadcasters have been licensed. That is the reason the report challenges state-owned broadcasters to throw off the mantle of being conservative and archaic institutions and lead the field, and to assist the cultural industries more widely to exploit digital technologies. The report mentions that in the emerging explosion of content, lies the unique possibility for promoting communications around public interest matters and journalism – as distinct from types of "user-generated content" which makes no positive difference to society. According to the study, the challenge is to promote communications that are centered on public interest news and current affairs. In this way, today’s state-owned broadcasters can update their role and relevance – and become forward-looking vehicles that set the pace and create a slipstream for society on the journey to deeper democracy and meaningful development.

This report argues that digital developments raise rather complex issues, whether in the United Kingdom or in Southern Africa. As a solution the report hints that as much as governments have ultimate responsibility to prepare for and oversee developments, industry and civil society groups ought to be quick to develop a coherent and holistic approach. In addition, it is said that if journalists, using all media platforms, can begin to comprehend and communicate the complexity of digitisation, the possibility then exists that such understanding can be spread to other sectors because it is believed that the digital revolution, if it is to be popular, participative and powerful, starts in the newsroom.

Implicit in the observations of this report, is the recognition that – amongst other things – digitisation also disrupts old boundaries between inter-personal and mass communication. What used to be the subject of, or product of, communication between a few individuals, can increasingly be put into the public sphere.

Lastly, the report argues that while looking at the present and near-present, and keeping an eye on what future scenarios we can imagine, we can hold onto our values. In the context of public broadcasting, these values are – in a nutshell – to focus mass communications on deepening democracy and development.