Community Media, Communications Tariffs and Convergence

This 55-page report forms part of a research project exploring community multimedia policy, conducted by lead researcher Peter Benjamin, reporting to the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and the National Community Radio Forum (NCRF), funded by the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZa).

According to the report, the environment for community media (especially community radio) is changing fast in South Africa. Many community media organisations have been active in the decade since South Africa became a democracy in the context of the political transformations of the 1990s. However, the context for their work is changing rapidly in terms of the political context, costs, market competition, role of government and of regulation, as well as the technology available. For community media to maintain their important role as a voice for the majority who are marginalised by commercial media, these new challenges must be understood. The report proposes that there are opportunities to strengthen the sector to be taken, as well as potential challenges that could undermine activities that are to be avoided.

This research is based on a survey of a majority of operating community radio stations that are members of the NCRF, as well as input from a number of experts in the sector who are sympathetic to the community media.

This report is intended to be a contribution to the development of new strategies for the community media sector in South Africa, so that the voice of communities can be strengthened as the country starts its second decade of freedom.

In the report, community media communications tariffs are discussed. There are case studies of communications costs from Radio Apac, Uganda; Radio Oxy-Jeunes, Senegal; Radio Mama, Uganda, and MoAfrika, Lesotho. The international experience of supporting community radio and reducing costs is discussed, with reference to Australia, France, the United Kingdom, the United Staes, and Latin America. The Tariff environment in South Africa is addressed.

The report also explores community electronic multimedia and multipurpose community centres. It provides international examples of community media convergence, and background information about community multimedia in South Africa. The final section discusses convergence and the new environment for community media in South Africa, including comment on Sentech, the Under-Serviced Area Licenses (USALs), the Second National Operator (SNO), The Convergence Bill and collaboration strategies and recommendations.

There are appendices covering references for this report, people who contributed to the work, the questionnaire that was used in the survey and a list of acronyms

Recommendations from the study findings include:

• The NCRF should be more active in building alliances to support its lobbying and campaigning around affordable long-term signal distribution for its stations; and the community ICT sector should rally to support this call.
• Capacity building is needed through the sector in areas including ICT skills, management, assessing community needs (needs analysis), entrepreneurship.
• Leading organisations in the sector such as NCRF and FXI should work with community media organisations to develop guidelines on cooperation with government, balancing the great need for resources with the risks of becoming a state mouthpiece and dependency.
• Information networks should share content (radio and other) created between community multimedia projects, and also examples of good practice in the development of content, other services and revenue generation.
• Campaigns should be run for a ‘Community rate’ for internet and telephony tariffs, akin to the ‘e-rate’ for schools envisaged in the Telecom Amendment Act 2001. One approach would be to lobby for the specific arrangements that provides subsidised tariffs for Radio Teemaneng to made available to other projects. Telecommunications tariffs for the community sector should be separate from normal public and commercial tariffs. The community sector which serves a vital developmental and universal service role should be subsidised.
• The Community Multimedia sector should lobby for subsidised internet access, as happens in Senegal and Mauritius.
• There is a need for greater policy monitoring in the sector (e.g. tracking DoC, GCIS, ICT Charter) which is shared with community projects, and monitoring of the performance of bodies such as the Universal Service Agency, the Media Diversity & Development Agency.

To request the full document in Word format, please contact Peter Benjamin, find details on the contact details section.