The Future of Television in the Global South: Reflections from Selected Countries 3031188322, 9783031188329

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The Future of Television in the Global South Reflections from Selected Countries Edited by George Ogola

The Future of Television in the Global South

George Ogola Editor

The Future of Television in the Global South Reflections from Selected Countries

Editor George Ogola Department of Cultural, Media and Visual Studies University of Nottingham Nottingham, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-18832-9    ISBN 978-3-031-18833-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  1 George Ogola Part I The Changing Television Market   9 2 Original  Local Productions, Streaming Services and the Future of Subscription TV in South Africa 11 Alexia Smit 3 Saudi  Arabian Television: The Challenge of Connecting with Reality 29 Naomi Sakr 4 Surviving  Digital Disruptions: The Future of Television in Kenya 49 Nancy Kacungira and Mike Owuor 5 Television’s  Uncertain and Fragmented Future: Battling the Digital Revolution in Uganda 71 Ivan Okuda

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Contents

Part II The ‘New Scramble’ for Africa  87 6 The  BBC in Africa: Western Influencer, Soft Power Purveyor, or African Broadcaster? 89 Peter Burdin 7 China  Global Television Network’s Debate Show, ‘Talk Africa’: Conflict, Economics, and Geopolitics107 Bob Wekesa Part III Television Policy and Regulation in the Digital Age 129 8 The  Past and Future of Media Giants in Latin America: The Legacy of Clientelism in Brazil’s Broadcast Television Development131 Elizabeth A. Stein and Karine Belarmino 9 Off  the Map: Mexican TV Navigates a Post-­national, Post-broadcast World169 Vinicio Sinta 10 The  Politics of Broadcasting Regulation in Uganda193 Adolf E. Mbaine 11 When  Stakeholder Interests Truncate Policy Intentions: The Case of Digital Television Migration in Nigeria213 Akin Akingbulu Index229

Notes on Contributors

Akin Akingbulu  is an expert in media and communication development. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Media and Society (IMS), a media/communication support non-governmental organization based in Lagos, Nigeria. He also works as a consultant in media/communication policy, political communication as well as capacity building for civil society and government institutions. He has consulted for the Government of Nigeria and international institutions at home and abroad. Akin has been the Coordinator of the Initiative on Building Community Radio in Nigeria and the Nigeria Community Radio Coalition since 2003. He was a member of the Working Group appointed by the Government of Nigeria to draft a Community Broadcasting Policy for the country in 2006. He has conducted research and published on issues in the media and communication sector. Akin previously worked in the education and youth development institutions of the public sector; in the media with Independent Communications Network, publishers of The News, and PM News titles, and the Independent Journalism Centre (IJC), Lagos. He holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Karine Belarmino  is a Political Science PhD student at the University of Minnesota. She holds a master’s in Political Science from the Social and Political Studies Institute (IESP-UERJ), Brazil. Her research focuses on media, clientelism, and corruption. She has published op-eds on Agenda Pública and Open Global Rights, and collaborated with Intervozes for the Brazilian Media.

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Peter Burdin  is the BBC’s former Africa Bureau Chief and brings more than 30 years’ experience as a senior editorial leader in the BBC’s international news operations. He now mentors and trains young journalists through his own Nairobi-based media company PBA Media Ltd. Peter is an Ambassador for the Tutu Foundation UK, he’s on the Board of the African Leadership University, the South Africa-UK Trust, and is Chair of Trustees for Humanity & Inclusion UK.  His expertise includes investments, economic empowerment, education, journalism and media and crisis management. He’s Senior Advisor to Siyakha Africa, the financial services company that brings together international investors and African SMEs and entrepreneurs. He also advises the Policy Centre for African People and the Agricultural Growth Network.In 2017 Peter co-founded Education Sub Saharan Africa, or ESSA, which seeks to transform education outcomes across the continent. He’s moderated conferences at Oxford and Cambridge University Africa Societies, and worked with the University of Central Lancashire on developing partnerships with African universities. Nancy Kacungira  is a multi-award-winning Ugandan journalist championing diversity, balance and nuance in narratives about the global south. Now based in London, she anchors BBC World News bulletins and presents the weekly programme ‘In Business Africa’, having previously worked in Kampala and Nairobi. She holds a Master’s degree in International Communications from the University of Leeds. Her impactful documentaries and TEDx talk on African narratives saw her named as one of Africa’s 100 most influential young people in 2019, and again in 2020. Nancy has worked in media since 2003, holding various roles including radio presenter, TV anchor, business correspondent and social media editor. Nancy is also a digital media pioneer; 10 years ago, she co-founded Blu Flamingo—an online media management company—that has now expanded operations to five African countries. As a moderator Nancy has hosted on some of the world’s biggest platforms including the World Economic Forum, IMF/World Bank Meetings and Uganda’s first ever Presidential Debate. Adolf  E.  Mbaine completed a DLitt et Phil in Journalism at the University of Johannesburg in 2019. His thesis focused on media policy and regulation. He also holds an MA in Journalism and Media Studies from Rhodes University. He is a media and communication trainer and consultant in Uganda, and teaches (mainly) print journalism plus

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media policy and regulation at the Department of Journalism and Communication, Makerere University. He was a Member of the Ministerial Commission for the reform and restructuring of the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) from August to December, 2016, among other key tasks. He is currently a NORHED Post-­ doctoral Fellow researching on “The Obstacles to building sustainable self-­ regulatory systems for journalistic accountability to society: A comparative study of Uganda and Tanzania.” George Ogola  works at the Department of Cultural, Media and Visual Studies, University of Nottingham. He holds a PhD and an MA in Journalism and Media Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and a BEd in English Literature and Linguistics from the University of Nairobi. Ogola has published widely on the interface between journalism, techno/politics and popular culture. Of particular interest in his work is the impact of emerging technologies on political and media practices in newsrooms in the global South. He is the author of Popular Media in Kenya’s History: Fiction and Newspapers as Socio-Political Actors (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and co-editor The Future of Quality Journalism: A cross-continental analysis (London and New York: Routledge, 2014). He is a member of the AHRC’s Peer Review College and convenor of the Africa Media Salon. Ivan Okuda  is a lawyer and journalist in Uganda. He is the Managing Editor of www.voxpopuli.ug, a non-profit online publication of the East African Center for Investigative Reporting, and previously wrote for the Daily Monitor newspaper. In 2019 he was a Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Media Africa Scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa where he attained an MA in Journalism and Media Studies. He holds a Bachelor of Laws from Makerere University and Post-Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Center, Uganda. Mike Owuor  is the Editor of the Sunday Nation, one of the highest circulating newspapers in Africa, published in print and online by the Nairobi-­ based regional giant, Nation Media Group. Mike has more than 15 years multimedia newsroom experience working in various senior editorial roles at the Nation Media Group and the Standard Group, Kenya’s top two media organisations. He also has interest in media research and in

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2017 co-authored a book chapter, “Citizen journalism in Kenya as a contested third space”, in Perspectives on Participatory Politics and Citizen Journalism in a Networked Africa (edited by Bruce Mutsvairo, Palgrave Macmillan). Mike is a member of the Kenya Editors Guild and the East African Editors Forum and has been involved in many media research projects by the two organisations. He holds a Master of Arts degree in International Journalism from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom, and Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education qualifications in Adaptive Leadership. Naomi Sakr  is Professor of Media Policy and a former Director of the CAMRI Arab Media Centre. She was previously a journalist, editor and country analyst. She worked at the Economist Intelligence Unit (1985–97) as a Middle East specialist and managing editor of political risk and economic forecast reports. She has an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies (1974) and another from the Institute of Education (1994), University of London. She left the EIU to research Arab media for a PhD (awarded by the University of Westminster in 1999) and worked as a consultant to international organisations, including Article 19, Amnesty International and the United Nations Development Programme. She has published extensively on the media in the Middle East. Some of her work include Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East, which won the British Middle Eastern Studies Book Prize in 2003, Arab Television Today, published in 2007, and Transformations in Egyptian Journalism, published 2013. She has edited two collections: Women and Media in the Middle East, Power through Self-­ Expression (2004) and Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life (2007) and co-edited a third, Arab Media Moguls (2015). Her work on media policy, journalism and cultural production in the Arab world has also been published in numerous refereed journals and edited books. In addition to her consulting work for the international organisations mentioned above, Naomi has been commissioned to write background papers on aspects of Arab media for UNESCO, the Arab Knowledge Report, the European Parliament, the UK House of Lords, British Council and Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for Intercultural Dialogue. She has mentored academics in Egypt and Tunisia on behalf of Media Diversity Institute and is frequently invited to speak at overseas events.

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Vinicio Sinta  is Assistant Professor in Broadcast Communication at The University of Texas at Arlington. He previously taught at Texas A&M University-San Antonio in the department of Communication, History & Philosophy. Alexia  Smit  is a senior lecturer in Film and Television studies at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She holds a PhD in Television studies from the University of Glasgow. Her research focusses on popular entertainment television, with a particular interest in South African reality television, gender, class, postfeminism, transnational African TV, and women’s television genres in Africa. Elizabeth  A.  Stein is currently an assistant professor at Wesleyan University, Middleton, CT, USA. She studies media and collective action, authoritarian regimes and democratic accountability with a regional focus on Latin America. Her work has appeared in publications such as International Journal of Press/Politics, Political Communication, Comparative Political Studies, and the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog. Bob  Wekesa  is Acting Director, African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nairobi and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Communication University of China. His background is in journalism. His area of research is the intersection of media and communications on the one hand and geopolitics, diplomacy and foreign policy on the other. His current research work includes: Africa-US public diplomacy (including diaspora relations); cities as actors in international relations; Africa-US digital diplomacy and the representation of Africa in American media and America in African media. He is also working on the trilateral Africa-USChina engagements.

List of Figures

Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 8.3 Fig. 8.4

The States of the North and Northeast Regions of Brazil in Which Politicians Who Own the Media are Prevalent Rede Globo Affiliates Percent of Population Using the Internet, Brazil in Comparative Perspective, 1993–2018 Broadband Subscriptions per 100 People, Brazil in Comparative Perspective, 2000–2018

142 147 148 149

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List of Tables

Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 9.3 Table 9.4

Timeline of Brazilian legislation creating and reforming Brazil’s regulatory structure for television 151 Media groups with Globo affiliate stations 156 Key performance indicators, Grupo Televisa (Millions of Mexican Pesos) 176 Key financial information, Televisión Azteca (Millions of U.S. Dollars)177 Grupo Televisa business segments, 2012–2020 comparison 182 Televisión Azteca business segments, 2012–2020 comparison 183

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction George Ogola

The changing information ecologies brought forth by technological developments and disruptions, most notably the proliferation of digital media and its various affordances have attracted significant scholarly attention on the future of legacy media. The changing journalistic practices, the de-centering of the traditional newsroom, the fragmentation of media audiences and their increasing role in the (co-)creation of media outputs and distribution, the collapse of traditional business models for media organisations, among other developments have been the subject of a large body of research. However, scholarly work on these developments and particularly on the precarity of the futures of most legacy media have mostly focused on the print media sector. This is particularly so within the context of the global South. Less visible yet equally impacted by these developments has been the broadcast media, more specifically television, now also facing variegated futures. Guillermo Orozco and Toby Miller once remarked that in Latin America, television “is Everywhere: Not Dead, Not Dying, But Converging and Thriving” (2016, 99). Whether that is the case or not today is partly

G. Ogola (*) Department of Cultural, Media and Visual Studies, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_1

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the subject of this book. There is still very little substantive research focusing particularly on television in this broader conversation about the future of the media in the global South. This is despite the significant role television continues to play in the everyday cultural and political life in the global South. As Orozco and Miller observed of Latin America, “governments still use television to promote generalized propaganda, as well as their daily agendas, football on screen remains wildly popular, and fiction programmes, most notably telenovelas, dominate prime time… television remains the principal cultural game in town” (2016, 99). The case may not be the same everywhere, for across many countries, television, like print, has haemorrhaged audiences and is effectively now just one of the many ‘cultural games’ in town. However, in many countries in the global South, television remains one of the most trusted media, particularly in times of crisis, when as the Reuters Digital News Report 2021 indicates, audiences seem to place “a greater premium on accurate and reliable news sources” (Newman et  al., 2021, 9). Indeed, even in global North contexts, in the case of the UK for example, television stations such as the BBC and Sky News were found to be the most trusted media brands during the Covid-19 pandemic (Bold, 2020). A survey by Havas further found that ‘mainstream media’ was also losing its pejorative connotations (Ibid.) In Africa, India, and Latin America, television continues to hold immense political agency. This is partly reflected in its notable strict control and policing through various means, including legislation and ownership, both directly and indirectly by several governments (Ogola, 2011). As is discussed in this volume by Vinicio Sinta and Elizabeth Stein, in the cases of Mexico and Brazil respectively, television ownership continues to attract significant attention from the state and political players more generally, all seeking some form of control of the sector. In both countries, television continues to play a key role in electoral politics and in the ‘husbandry’ of power. Those who seek political power are interested in controlling television and those in power use television to consolidate and protect their political and economic power. Even where the popularity of television (not to be confused with significance) is declining, there is little research on why and how this is the case. Often television is lumped with other media and its perceived decline explained on, for example, the challenges facing the print media. Suffice to mention that, first, the television experience is unique and the growth or decline of television as a platform is a function of both its shared characteristics with other media but also its distinctiveness. Second, scholarly

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interest in the future of print media has been precisely because of its decline rather than its growth. This book thus gives critical attention to television as similar but also different to other media, reflecting on its growth, decline, and prospects, while paying particular attention to the context within which it operates in the various selected countries. Scholarly attention on television in the global South has largely been focused on studying television formats (cf. Mueni, 2014; Ndlela, 2013), and representational and identity politics (cf. Motsaathebe, 2009; Porto, 2011) with broader structural issues covered almost entirely by industry reports. These remain the key reference materials for research in this field in the region. The exception has been the political role of television in crisis moments particularly in North Africa during the Arab Spring (cf. Lynch, 2015; Robertson, 2013) and Latin America, but these are hardly illustrative of broader television trends. There is some emerging interest on the future of television in the digital age as can be seen in the work of Motsaathebe and Chiumbu (2021) but even in this particular volume, an outlier in many respects, the focus is entirely on Africa and with a concentrated focus on Southern Africa. Overall, major gaps remain in terms of understanding how television in the global South is evolving and adapting within the context of the significant technological shifts, developments and raptures taking place in the broader media industry and what this means for its future(s). The chapter contributions in this volume address some of these gaps and attempt to anticipate the future of television in the region. This is not done in the sense of predicting what this future will look like, but rather providing some leads and clarity on what these futures may look like and anticipated areas of scholarly interest. This volume finds intellectual incentive in this urgent need to anticipate hence its particular focus on what current developments mean for television in the future. This kind of approach forces us to do much more than simply document the history of television. It forces us to ask new questions and to identify emerging patterns and relationships that draw on much more than the usual political economy approaches to such studies. Importantly too, we do not reduce the conversation to one that focuses entirely on technology but also look at the broader cultural, economic, regulatory, and policy infrastructure which remain central to determining the future of this sector. The aim then is to be usefully provocative, to start an important conversation on the prospects and future of television in the global South. Taking television in the global South as an important cultural and political barometer, space and force simultaneously constitutive and reflective

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of the Southern cultural and political experiences, and shaped by l­ocal/ national, continental, transcontinental, and technological flows, the book explores how television as a platform and sector in the global South is adapting to the rampant technological changes and processes of globalization and of globalized narratives and technologies. The chapters particularly examine how television is ‘future-proofing’ its continued relevance and viability, commercially, socially and politically in this constantly changing information ecosystem. The chapter contributions in the book are drawn from selected countries in regions of notable intellectual neglect in this area: East, South and West Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. The countries we focus on are purposively selected primarily because of their illustrative potential of the key issues addressed in the book. At best a study of this kind can only focus on indicative case studies but they still have the capacity to provide us a panoply of the range of challenges facing television in the global South and the responses to these—technological, professional, policy related and regulatory. Collectively, they sufficiently provide us with a strong enough context that can help us understand the prospects for television in the global South. The book draws on a wealth of expertise from journalism, media, cultural and political studies scholars, media practitioners and policymakers. This is a deliberate approach driven in part by the recognition of the need to bridge the gap between university-based research and industry and to reflect on the latter from within. The book is divided into three parts. Part I broadly looks at the changing television market in the global South using case studies from South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Uganda. Alexia Smit (Chap. 2) focuses on the impact of streaming services in South Africa and how these are reconfiguring the television sector in the country. She particularly looks at the cut-throat competition between digital streaming services Showmax and Netflix both leveraging on their various strengths, one utilizing its international profile and footprint and the other its local knowledge and networks in the television sector in the country. She argues that both companies are investing heavily in  locally relevant programming to serve a market whose taste is simultaneously local as it is international. It is a market that is so complex that the notion of the ‘local’ has been reimagined by the broadcasters. Meanwhile, the legacies of apartheid endure in South Africa’s media landscape, often in tension with the emergent postapartheid political dispensation. The struggle between this historical past and the fragile present is reflected in the various compromises that are now reflected in South Africa’s TV market.

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Naomi Sakr’s chapter (Chap. 3) offers a comprehensive discussion of Saudi Arabian television, drawing on her extensive work on television in the Arab world. In particular, she looks at what she calls a ‘new’ approach to screen production in Saudi Arabia and how non-Saudi companies and individuals are developing a ‘Saudi-based entertainment industry of international stature’ and how this sits with a political environment that traditionally seeks direct control over media content. She asks whether this new approach will ‘generate vibrancy and innovation’ in the television sector in the country. Mike Owuor and Nancy Kacingira’s chapter (Chap. 4) examines how Kenya’s TV industry is trying to adapt to the shifting demands of its audiences and competition from streaming services among other new players by investing in new ways of delivering content. To do so, they are having to move away from traditional path dependencies, thus also experimenting with new business models to create alternative income streams for the industry as the traditional advertising market shrinks. Across the border in Uganda, Ivan Okuda (Chap. 5) explores similar challenges facing the TV industry in Uganda. He reflects on the fragmenting television landscape in the country. He argues that the future of the industry in the country will be influenced not only by technology but by broader structural factors, most fundamentally Uganda’s socio-economic situation. Technological appropriations for content production, distribution and monetization will largely depend on the economic situation of the ordinary Ugandan. Without disposable income, for example, many Ugandans will not be able to own a television set much less discriminate what or how to engage with television content. Okuda further argues that TV players in the country will need to develop innovative business models that take into account Uganda’s complex class structures and audiences’ media consumption habits, often a function of various variables. Part II of the book looks at the place of international TV broadcasters in Africa. Peter Burdin’s chapter (Chap. 6) offers an interesting first-­ person account of his experiences as a former Head of BBC Africa and the organisation’s evolution into what he calls an ‘African broadcaster’ through its ‘Agenda 2020’ project which has seen the organisation expand massively in the continent. He examines the BBC’s emergent ‘editorial agenda’ for Africa as well as the tensions between the organisation’s attempt to create a new African narrative developed from within the continent with its silent role as a soft power purveyor of UK interests. The future of the BBC in Africa he argues will also be determined by its

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funding model, which is currently under threat from the Conservative government. Bob Wekesa’s chapter (Chap. 7) continues this discussion on the new ‘scramble of Africa’ by focusing on the China Global Television Network (CGTN) which was launched in Africa as China Central Television Africa (CCTV Africa) in January 2012. Through an examination of one of the organisation’s flagship shows, Africa Talk, he looks at whether CGTN achieved its stated objectives—serving as a voice for Africa—and implicit goals—countering ostensibly negative Western coverage of China in Africa. Part III of the book focuses on television policy and regulation in the digital age. Elizabeth Stein and Karine Belarmino’s chapter (Chap. 8) offers a detailed engagement with the oligopolistic nature of media ownership in Brazil, how this has historically influenced the country’s political systems, and how media owners are adapting to this new regime of technologies, policies, and legislation that threaten their dominance. They argue that the culture of clientelism that characterises the media landscape in Brazil is so entrenched and unlikely to be threatened by the emergent tech-dominant media ecosystem or Brazil’s policy and legal responses initiated so far. Vinicio Sinta’s chapter (Chap. 9) looks at the changing media landscape in Mexico, long dominated by Televisa and TV Azteca. In the context of a fragmenting audience, a shrinking advertising base, and pressure from global Video-on-Demand giants, the chapter reflects on how the two conglomerates are adapting to the emerging threats to their dominance and what this means for their future and that of the TV sector in Mexico. In Uganda, Adolf Mbaine’s chapter (Chap. 10) examines television regulation, looking at key regulatory actors such as the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the role of the government and how regulation can stifle the growth of the sector even within the context of a liberalised media environment. He argues that whilst the constitution provides for an independent regulatory body the UCC, television regulation in the country remains largely in the hands of the state, in turn undermining both the expansion of the sector and its capacity to adapt to the various changes taking place in the broader media ecosystem. In the last chapter, Akin Akinbulu (Chap. 11) examines how stakeholder interests, principally the state, have undermined digital television migration in Nigeria. Contestations over stakeholder interests have led to a flawed policymaking process ultimately affecting the implementation of

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the digital television migration in Nigeria. He argues that the failures of this transition and the policy and regulatory flaws it has exposed in the Nigerian broadcast sector will have implications for the country’s television future.

References Bold, B. (2020). BBC, Sky and Guardian Most-Trusted News Brands, Thanks to Coronavirus Coverage. Campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved from https://www. c a m p a i g n l i v e . c o . u k / a r t i c l e / b b c -­s k y -­g u a r d i a n -­m o s t -­t r u s t e d ­news-­brands-­thanks-­coronavirus-­coverage/1677837 Lynch, M. (2015). After the Arab Spring: How the Media Trashed the Transitions. Journal of Democracy, 26(4), 90–99. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2015.0070 Motsaathebe, G. (2009). Gendered Roles, Images and Behaviour Patterns in the Soap Opera Generations. Journal of African Media Studies, 1(3), 429–448. Motsaathebe, G., & Chiumbu, S. (Eds.). (2021). Television in the Digital Age. Palgrave Macmillan. Mueni, J. (2014). A Comparative Study of the Representation of Womanhood in Local and Foreign Television Soap Operas in Kenya. Ph.D.  Diss., University of Nairobi. Ndlela, M. (2013). Television Across Boundaries. Critical Studies in Television: Localisation of Big Brother Africa, 8(2), 57–72. Newman, N., et al. (2021). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021. Reuters Institute. Ogola, G. (2011). The Political Economy of the Media in Kenya: From Kenyatta’s ‘Nation-Building’ Press to Kibaki’s Fragmented Nation. Africa Today, 57(3), 77–95. Orozco, G., & Miller, T. (2016). Television in Latin America is “Everywhere”: Not Dead, Not Dying, But Converging and Thriving. Media and Communication, 4(3), 99–108. Porto, M. (2011). Telenovelas and Representations of National Identity in Brazil. Media, Culture and Society, 33(1), 53–69. Robertson, A. (2013). Connecting in Crisis: “Old” and “New” Medi and the Arab Spring. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 18(3), 325–341. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161213484971

PART I

The Changing Television Market

CHAPTER 2

Original Local Productions, Streaming Services and the Future of Subscription TV in South Africa Alexia Smit

Introduction Local entertainment is overwhelmingly the most popular content for South African audiences. According to research by futurefact, 86% of adult South Africans “like to watch TV programmes where our social and cultural issues are part of the story” (Reid, 2020) The top five highest rated programmes on terrestrial tv in the last quarter of 2019 were all local television dramas (Reid, 2020). Similarly in the same period on pay TV the top performers told local stories (Reid, 2020). It thus stands to reason that pay TV services have invested considerable funding in local programming. Multichoice (parent company of the streaming service, Showmax) reports that it has devoted 40% of its acquisition budget on local entertainment excluding sport (Multichoice, 2021). Netflix has reportedly invested R800 million into South African programming (Businesstech,

A. Smit (*) University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_2

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2021). For over-the-top (OTT) subscription providers entering the South African market, market penetration in the country will depend, to a large extent on capacity to local content provision. South Africa’s policy and legislative environment is also set up strongly in favour of local productions. In November 2020, the government announced plans to increase quotas on local content for commercial service providers in South Africa and indicated plans to extend these requirements to OTT streaming services as well as plans to charge licence fees to OTT services (Department of Communications, 2020). While the matter of regulating streaming services is likely to be contested for some time it remains clear that local content provision is of key importance for considering the future of video entertainment in South Africa. However, given the complexity of the post-apartheid social space and the global networks within which local media is entrenched, it is important to examine what is really meant by “local content”, especially when it comes to OTT streaming services with large international audiences. By considering how Showmax and Netflix are interpreting and commissioning local content, this chapter considers the future of streaming in South Africa, and the implications for South Africa’s entertainment future.

OTT Streaming in South Africa Ruth Teer-Tomaselli (2019, 466) notes that despite a wide array of viewing choices 56% of South African homes still rely on free-to-air analogue broadcast TV. Furthermore, 41% of South African households subscribe to one of the DSTV satellite TV subscription plans. At the time of Teer-­ Tomaselli’s writing only 4% of South Africans watch via OTT video streaming (2019, 466). South African Communications Authority (ICASA) cite expensive broadband, slow internet speeds and low device ownership (ICASA, 2019) as reasons for the “muted” impact of OTT streaming services that they identify in the South African market. There has, however, been a significant recent improvement in broadband affordability and speeds, leading to the entry of many new local and international streaming services into the South African market. This trajectory of lower data costs and better speed is likely to continue, and thus increases the future viability of OTT streaming services (Tengeh and Udoakpan, 2021, 2–3). The incursion of OTT subscription services into the South African market has raised concerns amongst regulators as well as for the local pay

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television service providers (Department of Communications, 2020; Multichoice, 2021). Colin Chambwera (2021, 40) argues that global streaming services such as Netflix currently do not pose a competitive threat to free-to-air broadcast TV but rather competes with Multichoice, the satellite channel which has long dominated the South African pay TV space. And indeed my survey of the original productions on South African streaming TV will reveal that local programming made for streaming TV in South Africa addresses niche audiences and viewers in the middle to upper middle class bracket rather than mass audiences. Showmax, a South African OTT streaming service attached to pay TV company Multichoice launched in 2015, a few months before global streaming service Netflix launched in the country in January 2016. Multichoice has explicitly positioned Showmax as the satellite providers’ attempt to retain viewers in response to an anticipated influx of global OTT streaming offerings (Multichoice, 2018). Showmax was offered to consumers for a basic subscription fee but was also packaged with DSTVs satellite subscriptions. So that, for example, a premium satellite subscriber may access Showmax as part of their satellite television service. As of January 2021 Multichoice has 8.7 million customers in South Africa (Gavaza, 2021). This number refers to their entire subscriber numbers across satellite and streaming rather than simply its streaming numbers. DSTVs satellite services are more costly than streaming entertainment and come with the cost of installing a satellite dish and purchasing a decoder. Via Showmax, Multichoice can offer its content to subscribers without the barriers associated with satellite subscriptions. While DSTV already operates satellite TV services in many countries on the African continent, Showmax signals an expansion of the company’s global footprint as they now offer Showmax services in 70 countries. Netflix launched in South Africa as part of a large scale global expansion of their services across multiple countries in January 2016. Netflix has followed an aggressive programme of international expansion and is the most established streaming video platform in terms of its international penetration. But the platform has not dominated global markets uniformly and the success of Netflix varies from country to country (Lobato, 2018, 44). Netflix does not share data about its viewership but Businesslive.SA estimates that Netflix South African customer numbers are between 300,000 and 400,000. This number was based upon the user share Multichoice has estimated in its presentations to South Africa’s communications regulator, ICASA (Gavaza, 2021).

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Both Netflix and Showmax have made attempts to grow their market share in the mobile phone streaming space, each offering inexpensive mobile subscriptions: Netflix mobile plan is available at R49 per month in South Africa (in comparison to R99 for the full basic service) and US 3.99  in other African countries. Similarly, Showmax offers a mobile streaming subscription for R39.99 in South Africa. Showmax and Netflix share the OTT subscription space with an increasing number of streaming services. The market is thus currently comprised of both local services such as Vodacom Video Play (Launched 2015), TelkomOne (Launched 2020), and e-video-on-demand (Launched 2021), and international companies such as Amazon PrimeVideo (Launched 2016), Acorn TV (Launched 2018), Apple TV+  (Launched 2019), Youtube Premium (Launched 2019), Britbox (Launched 2021). Disney+ is about to make its entry in South Africa, with plans to launch in June 2022 (News24, August 2021). The national broadcaster plans to launch an SABC streaming platform by March 2022 (News24, 2021) Other international streaming services such as HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+ and Discovery+ have not yet launched in South Africa but the future may see more of these services entering the market. I focus this discussion on Showmax and Netflix, two providers of subscription streaming entertainment which have been in the market for a comparatively long time and which are currently making original local content in South Africa. By examining their strategies we may get an indication of how other market players will address South African audiences.

South African Broadcasting As I have mentioned, South African audiences still overwhelmingly rely on analogue television. The free-to-air South Africa broadcasting environment is primarily the terrain of the South African National Broadcaster (SABC) which operates three channels along with South Africa’s free-to-­ air commercial broadcast TV channel e-TV. South African terrestrial TV has been due to transition to digital since plans were initiated in 2006 but the process has been delayed by disputes and court battles (Teer-Tomaselli, 2019). The migration has still yet to occur. While local productions are popular in South Africa, the national broadcaster has had difficulty funding these productions. For many years the SABC has been beset by financial, management and operational issues caused by corruption and political interference (Teer-Tomaselli, 2019).

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The SABC has received several bailouts from the government but has still found itself having to enact retrenchments and cancel popular programmes. The broadcaster is currently in a process of restructuring and rebuilding but much needs to be done to bring the SABC into phase of stability and consistent public service provision (Nevill, 2020). Due to the legacy of apartheid the South African video entertainment market is highly segmented in terms of both class and race. The apartheid government was slow to introduce television and when they did in 1976 the service was initially dedicated to the interests of white South Africans. In the 1980s two channels were added to cater to black audiences. The broadcasting policy was underpinned by racist ideas about black audiences. In the post-apartheid years the national broadcaster has been tasked with communicating a message of national unity while also serving the interests of South Africa’s diverse audiences. South African public television is governed by a set of regulations set out by ICASA which require public and commercial broadcasters to produce certain quotas of local content, to feature local language content and which incentivises production in regions of the country with low television representation. Like that of broadcast TV, the history of Pay TV was also undergirded by white dominance. Ruth Teer Tomaselli explains how the introduction of pay TV service M-Net by Naspers in 1986 can be seen as a way of sustaining the power of the ideological power of the Afrikaans press in response to competition from television broadcasting (2019, 460). M-Net expanded into the satellite service DSTV in 1995 under the Naspers subsidiary, Multichoice, becoming the dominant provider of pay television in South Africa. In the post-apartheid era middle class Black South Africans have been identified as the biggest and fastest-growing market for pay video entertainment services (Multichoice, 2019). DSTV has launched a range of channels Mzansi Magic bouquet, Vuzu) catering to local black audiences and has also released a set of programming bouquets at price points accessible to a segment of the black South African population. In addition DSTV continues to serve Afrikaans viewers with dedicated channels. The broadcaster also offers premium international content and exclusive sports access. It is important to recount this history and context because it has a meaningful impact on the strategies and rhetoric necessary for OTT service to command the South African market. While Showmax, as a Multichoice company may position itself as a homegrown local company, it is worth noting that it inherits Multichoice’s history as a benefactor of

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the apartheid regime even though the company has been unbundled from parent company, Naspers. That the market is divided along raced and class lines means that different streaming services are likely to court niche segments of South Africa’s viewership. On the one hand gaining a large market share in the country will mean catering to the needs of black South Africans who are by far the majority. This means producing content in local languages and telling stories relevant to black middle class South Africans. Teer-Tomaselli points out given South Africa’s language demographics programmers offering the most offerings of local languages, particularly isiXhosa and IsiZulu, will likely have a “head start” in the pay broadcasting space (2019, 466). However, on the other hand, significant wealth remains in the hands of smaller groups, especially white South Africans. Given the capacity of streaming services to court niche viewerships, another approach for these services may be producing a selection of niche content which can speak to multiple different language groups including smaller language and identity groups. For example it is likely that a service like Britbox will cater to the needs of English speaking mostly white South Africans with a sense of cultural connection to Britain. Another critical element of this context is the paucity of representation of black South Africans and the historical neglect of this audience group. Despite measures to address inequality there has been limited entry of black South Africans into directorial and executive roles filmmaking industry, particularly when it comes to black women (Mkosi, 2016; Vourlias, 2018). The more recent failings of the SABC have meant that black South African audiences have been ill-served by the public broadcaster, even in the post-apartheid era and industry workers have had to navigate a difficult broadcasting landscape. The entry of streaming services into the South African space signals the potential for new ways of representing South African life and new opportunities for South African film and TV makers. Streaming platforms are particularly attractive for their ability to expose local stories to global markets. But, as I will show commercial factors and broader global networks of OTT companies will determine to what extent streaming services can actually make a meaningful contribution to the South African film and television industry.

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Regulatory Matters The competition between Showmax (Multichoice) and Netflix has been made particularly visible by regulatory disputes surrounding competition in the subscription TV market. ICASA began an investigation in 2016 which sought to examine the pay TV industry and ensure fair competition was enabled in line state provisions. While ICASA’s (2019) initial findings indicate that Multichoice does not have sufficient competition within the pay TV market and may be subject to remedies, the presentations made to the committee by Multichoice circle around the competitive threat posed by new OTT streaming services. Multichoice has made several rounds of presentations to ICASA which stress the belief that OTT subscription services present a significant competitive threat market Multichoice’s business (ICASA, 2019; Multichoice, 2021). There are two ways in which the concept of local content emerged in this discussion. Firstly, Multichoice’s presentation makes a case for the value of the company to South African consumers by stressing the company’s contribution to the production of local content. Multichoice describes itself as “a local homegrown company” (Multichoice, 2021, 10). The presentation highlights that the company has produced “3850 h local content” and note that 40% of their expenditure goes to local programming. Secondly they stress the contribution of multichoice to employment and profit within the local TV industry. They thus pitch the appeal for regulatory support as a battle between a homegrown local service provider and a multinational company with the “local-ness” of Multichoice as a key selling point. What multichoice downplays in this self-positioning as a local company, is their vast multi-national footprint in Africa. Multichoice may be a local company but it also a transnational operation with significant sway in markets across Africa. While this regulatory debate demonstrates Multichoice’s view of Netflix as a competitive threat, the two companies have engaged in deals which suggests the necessity of working with rivals as the landscape of pay TV in South Africa changes. Multichoice has adapted by integrating its services with its streaming competitors like Amazon Prime and Netflix. DSTV subscribers can access these platforms via the DSTV decoder. This, they claim, is to increase convenience for their customers but also as a measure against losing customers entirely to other services (Multichoice, 2021, 33). As in many national contexts into which Netflix had made its entry, there is much confusion and contestation over how to regulate streaming

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service providers, particularly in comparison to the regulations on existing local entertainment providers on traditional platforms. Netflix is currently not subject to local programming quotas and TV licencing requirements which apply to both traditional broadcast services and satellite services in South Africa. In late 2020 the South African government announced plans to extend licences to OTT streaming service and to apply local content quotes to their catalogues in a graduated system and up to a maximum of 30% (Department of Communication, 2020). While Netflix has begun to produce local content, this is not governed by the ICASA regulations which pertain to broadcast and satellite television. The percentage of programming spend quota would have a dramatic impact on Netflix’s competitive edge: its abundant catalogue of programming from around the world. While Netflix has made a small amount of local shows it is a tiny fraction of the spending that Netflix makes on global programming. Netflix spokesperson Shola Sanni responded by noting that quota on local content spend would mean reducing the catalogue of international offerings in a way which would not benefit South African consumers (BusinessTech, 2021). Like Multichoice Netflix positions itself as a contributor to the local industry in debates about regulation. Sanni stressed the 800 million investment in local content and the 1800 jobs created thus far by the company, suggesting that the government instead focus on incentivising local content production (BusinessTech, 2021). Sanni also highlighted the fact that international audiences for South African content outstrip South African audiences, suggesting a different way of thinking about who consumes local content.

“Local Content” and Streaming TV: Moving Targets On a surface reading, “local content” might be read is any content made in South Africa about South African concerns, people or characters. A greater challenge is providing locally made content which is relevant to South Africans and will bring viewers to platforms while helping providers to navigate the regulatory environment and public impression of their companies. Given the segmentation of audiences, understanding how and why service providers within the South African market commission particular kinds of local content is key to understanding their future moves in the space and for understanding how the local market concerns connect with global networks of television. Discussions of the landscape need to

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include analysis of programme types, genres and address to audiences. However, this task comes with considerable challenges. One of the difficulties of studying OTT streaming services is the shift from studying published TV schedules and ratings to engaging with video content as a catalogue accessible through web interfaces. These interfaces are not designed to be used by researchers and it can be impossible to tell from these interfaces the full range of local programming which exists within a company’s catalogue. These interfaces are subject to change and can be difficult to search, especially in the case of Netflix which uses algorithms to predict viewer preferences, thus making the interface different for every user. Similarly, we cannot know what extent of Showmax’s holdings of licenced local content is displayed on the interface. Rather than attempting to provide a comprehensive overview of these extensive catalogues, I have chosen to highlight key trends in  local programming on both Netflix and Showmax, with a view to predicting the futures of local content on each provider. I’ve been guided here by the amount of press attention and promotion attached to specific shows and trends. Jason Mittell explains that in the streaming age, where broadcasters are no longer invested in selling audiences to advertisers, brand recognition and prestige is more important to subscription services that audience share or ratings (Mittell, 2016). I thus focus this chapter on those shows which are marketed as “original local content” in a bid to brand Netflix and Showmax’s respective local offerings within the South African market.

Original Local Content on Netflix When compared to Showmax, Netflix has the advantage of an enormous, steady supply of premium global content. However, the press material surrounding Netflix role in South Africa certainly celebrates the importance of the local and also positions Netflix as a company adding value to the local film market. Dorothy Ghettuba the head of African originals for Netflix, hails African talent while positioning Netflix as an enabling force for local creative industries noting: We have come across great creatives and great producers who have, for the longest while, been working with what they have, and now we give them the opportunity with this platform and this backing from this company to really do their best Vourlias (2020)

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She also stresses that Netflix brings value to African creatives by connecting them with enormous global markets, noting that Netflix gives creators “access to 190 countries” (Vourlias, 2020). Netflix approach to local is thus intimately bound with an address to global audiences. Queen Sono (2020) was publicized as Netflix’s first original African series. The South African series Shadow (2019) actually precedes Queen Sono by a year, but from its marketing we can understand Queen Sono as an important flagship show for Netflix African content. The show is based in South Africa but was shot in several African locations including Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria and was thus described as a truly African production. Netflix soon followed the model established by Queen Sono with two more high profile original productions Blood and Water (2020), and Jiva (2021). These series all have marked commonalities. All three shows feature active black female leads and have high production values. While Queen Sono has a male showrunner in Kagiso Lediga, the two subsequent shows each have a black woman as showrunner with Nosipho Dumisa behind Blood and Water, and the showrunner for Jiva being Busisiwe Ntintili. This commissioning of black African women is of tremendous significance given how few black women have gained access to directing, showrunning and writing roles within the South African film and TV industry despite the governments’ professed commitment to transforming this industry (Mkosi, 2016; Vourlias, 2018). Through this approach to commissioning original content Netflix can boast a direct investment in growing local talent and in given voices to those within the SA industry who have been sidelined. While there are clear commercial and political benefits to this approach, it is also notable that Netflix has managed to make this intervention where other more traditional film and TV producers and distributors have failed to offer significant spaces for women directors. Netflix can also use the foregrounding of its investment in black women showrunners to market and grow interest around the work both locally and in terms of its international audience. The three texts highlighted here seem designed to offer particular local experiences but also have themes which make them appealing to global audiences, especially those in African nations and in the African diaspora. All three shows can also be seen to adapt popular genres to the South African context and in this way they are potentially relatable for global audiences familiar with these genres. Blood and Water is a mystery/crime narrative and teen drama. Queen Sono is a spy/action TV series while Jiva draws from the formula of the dance film. Blood and Water was

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a particularly big success with international audiences attracting an estimated 14 million global viewers (BusinessTech, 2021). This success demonstrates proof that South African stories have appeal for global streaming viewers. It is however worth noting that this show features elite private school students and thus represents a very small sliver of South African life. It will be interesting to see if working class South African stories garner the same global response. In the age of variety, subscribers are channelled towards increasingly niche programme categories or “microgenres” by the interfaces and algorithms of streaming platforms (O’Donnell and Stevens, 2020, 1). Netflix has played key role in bringing women’s agency to the forefront of its niche marketing through the popular category “strong female lead. ” Derya Özkan and Deborah Hardt (2020, 167) explain that Netflix investment in women-led shows has been made in order to bring the platform the most prestige and brand recognition. Furthermore, Özkan and Hardt note the prominence of women within Netflix’s corporate hierarchy and the platforms tendency to women creatives to commission and produce their programming (169). This trend appears to apply to the company’s strategy in South Africa with head of commissioning, Dorothy Ghettuba, a black African woman. The Covid 19 pandemic has produced unexpected challenges for Netflix original Africa productions. Queen Sono was initially commissioned for a second season but this decision had to be reversed due to production difficulties produced by the pandemic. This is global trend affecting many of Netflix global projects but it is worth noting that due existing infrastructural and resource problems, productions in global South contexts are perhaps particularly vulnerable to the effects of dramatic and unforeseen global events. It remains to be seen how well Netflix’ programme of local production will recover from the pandemic. Netflix has made an alliance with South Africa’s National Film and Video Association (NFVF, 2021) to produce a join fund of R28 million for local film production. This move to align itself with a state body is interesting given that Netflix is a large, foreign, commercially driven platform. While the NFVF has been in many partnership with global film funders, this is significant because it demonstrates the movement of the worlds’ biggest global streaming OTT service into the South African film funding space. It shows that we cannot simply pitch local and governmental against foreign and commercial in the debate on streaming TV in Africa. Rather, the future of streaming platforms in South Africa may

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involve collaborations between struggling state entities and commercial platform operators. However we must remain vigilant about whether the productions are made in a way which upholds the remit of our local film authorities to promote transformation and support the emergence of distinct local voices in film and TV. What risks are there that Netflix, through the NFVF might produce homogenous faire which is more in line with global aesthetics than with distinctly local voices and concerns? This concern is of course counterbalanced with the benefits of showcasing South African film content, stars and creators to Netflix’s global audience. While Netflix entry into South Africa has been welcomed as a new source of opportunities for South African makers, the company does not accept direct pitches from creators and works only through local agencies suggesting that Netflix productions are still subject to the gatekeeping mechanisms of the host country despite their self-positioning as a new space for local stories.

Original Local Content on Showmax While the discussion around Netflix hinges on the company’s strategies to entrench itself into the local market, the debate over Showmax is twofold. On the one hand Showmax (Multichoice) content needs to be understood in terms of the company’s need to retain viewers and compete with global streaming services making entry into the market. On the other hand the platform needs to be viewed with an awareness of Multichoice’s existing foothold in South Africa and its expansive footprint in Africa. Showmax has an advantage over Netflix in terms of its large library of local content and holdings of African content from its services to a range of African countries. The multichoice bouquet of services may also have advantage in terms of establishment within the South African market and situated knowledge of local audiences. As it forms part of DSTV, the service also benefits from being able to capture existing satellite subscribers and feed them into the streaming service through brand loyalty, cross-­ platform advertising and favoured programming. Showmax’s original content is perhaps best understood as part of a broader strategy to retain viewers for DSTV’s bouquet. In contrast to Netflix’s foregrounding of black women, the first original productions made for Showmax appear to court local white audiences. Tali’s Wedding Diary (2017) was the first Showmax original drama show. This mockumentary comedy show presents comic foibles of Tali, a wealthy white

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Jewish South African as she prepares for her wedding. The second original The Girl From St Agnes (2019), also courts the white upper middle class. It is a teen murder mystery set at an elite highschool. The story is driven by the murder of a white teenage girl and most of the lead protagonists are white. It is interesting that both the early original dramas from Netflix and Showmax feature mystery narratives at elite schools. This perhaps tells us something about the private school as a site of class contestation and aspiration in South African storytelling. It also reveals that both streaming services are invested in upper middle class stories which are at a far remove from the experiences of most South Africans. Showmax’s appeal to white values and experiences perhaps needs to be understood in terms of how Multichoice imagines its customers. Multichoice has identified black South Africans as an important market and devoted substantial resources to producing programming for this audience through their Mzansi Magic channel which has quickly become the most-watched channel on DSTV (Kemp, 2020). However, it would appear that the company has positioned its streaming service as a tool for retaining and attracting upper-middle class white consumers who might be lured away from DSTV by new global competitors. The service must also produce this content with a transnational audience in mind, and favouring the English is a way of making shows appealing globally. Initially two of Multichoice’s major audiences were not readily addressed by Showmax’s original productions: black South Africans and white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans. I would argue that this is not because the company is not invested in these markets but rather because both of these markets are so well catered for by satellite TV channels that Multichoice could simply pick up a vast catalogue of programming for these groups from their existing satellite content. In addition to their exclusive content, Showmax offers a large catalogue of Afrikaans programming made for the Kyknet channel and black-centred content in indigenous languages made for the Mzansi magic channel bouquet and for the Vuzu channel. At present Multichoice appears to be catering to its most well-developed and lucrative audiences via satellite television services and then uploading this content for secondary viewing on Showmax. Original productions for exclusive online viewing seem to designed to cater to niche interest groups. Indeed, even in the age of global television, streaming TV trends are revealing of the deep social divides amongst South Africans which are the legacy of our apartheid past.

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While the platform’s first two originals catered to white English speakers, their later additions to the catalogue suggest an interest in producing niche content for specific South African audiences. Skemerdans (2021) is set in the Western Cape and centre around the so-called “coloured” community. The characters are described as speaking AfriKaaps, a regionally specific form of Afrikaans spoken by Black residents of the Cape formerly classified as “coloured” under apartheid. Through this production Showmax is demonstrating an interest in producing local drama that caters to very distinct regional audiences. One of Showmax’s most-hyped recent show Devilsdorp (2021) demonstrates of Showmax’s capacity to produce locally based gripping serialised “true-crime” made popular by US Netflix series such us Making a Murderer, The Staircase, Don’t F*** with Cats and Tiger King. Devilsdorp apparently applies this formula to a particularly complex and sensational local story of the Krugersdorp murders. With this move the platform might be seen as announcing its direct competition with Netflix. While true-crime has a long history on television, the Netflix true crime has developed the formula to fit with the contexts of online “binge” viewing, but producing suspenseful complex narrative with abundant shocking twists and revelations. Devilsdorp contains all of these trademark features: a brutal criminal story, a labyrinthine plot with surprising twists, and a cast of strange and idiosyncratic people. Content such as this appears designed to retain the kind of audience who might be swayed to leave Multichoice/DSTV/Showmax in favour of a subscription to Netflix. It offers a story with appealing local resonance in an internationally desirable formula. That the story is primarily about white people is notable. While the show focusses on an Afrikaans-speaking community, the use of subtitles on interviews and English-language narration suggest that this community is being represented for an audience beyond its boundaries. While the target audience may be white, it is a vastly different one from the audience catered to by DSTVs more “wholesome”, family oriented Afrikaans language broadcasting. It is evident from Showmax’s bouquet that the streaming service has much more segmented and multi-faceted approach to the idea of original local content than Netflix. While Netflix has highlighted black experiences, which may be equally relevant to South African audiences and a global African diaspora, Showmax has focussed on local programmes catering to niche audience groups. Showmax is perhaps a greater inheritor

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of apartheid racial categories that still define South African social life than is Netflix. Recently Showmax has commissioned black centred Showmax originals. Season two of Life with Kelly Khumalo premiered on Showmax in 2021 rather than via the satellite service and Uthando Lodumo (2021) is another Showmax exclusive. However, these are both reality TV series trading on celebrity personae rather than fictional drama series. At the end of 2021, DSTV released The Wife, the platforms first original telenovela. The show tells the story of a group of Zulu brothers. The programme broke records on Showmax, surpassing all of the platforms previous productions for first-day views. The popularity of The Wife signals a potential shift away from their current investment in catering to black audiences through traditional broadcast TV and towards an investment in a South African TV future marked by much broader access to the streaming market by the majority of South Africans. Following the success of The Wife, Showmax appears to be continuing its investment in black-centred South African stories, the latest of which is the fantasy series Bloodpsalms (2022) created by Jamil Qubeka and Layla Swart. As much as Showmax may dominate local content available for streaming, the platform cannot be understood in separation from DSTV’s Africa footprint. There is distinct body of programming emerging from DSTV which might be understood as addressing a Pan-African audience. Unlike the Netflix approach which arguably caters to diasporic audiences in the West more than specifically African continental audiences, the address of DSTV’s Africa content is to the concerns of the African continent. We can take example the show Our Perfect Wedding SA which was initially screened on DSTV before being hosted on Showmax. Multichoice has now reproduced this show via spin-offs in several African countries including Zambia, Nigeria, and Kenya. These different African versions of the show are now available to viewers on Showmax. This demonstrates how Showmax leverages its audiences in Africa, marketing franchises across a range of African nations in order to grow their markets and then using this content to bolster their streaming catalogue on Showmax. Similar examples include Date My Family, which has been franchised in Nigeria and Kenya. Showmax is thus not simply an example of a local streaming service but also a multinational distributor of content.

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Conclusion While traditional broadcasting remains dominant in South Africa, the operation of streaming services continues to grow in number and influence. Given the uncertainties surrounding the national broadcaster and digital migration; along with cheaper broadband and increased pathways of access via mobile devices; we can expect to see OTT services having a growing importance in the future of the South African film and TV industry. From a consideration of the investment in local content by both Showmax and Netflix it is apparent that local content production is viewed as essential for market penetration in South Africa. Depending on the success of these strategies, we can expect powerful new entrants into the streaming market to follow a similar path of local content production in the coming years. This brief overview of Showmax and Netflix original local offerings demonstrates each platforms’ different ways of conceptualising local content. Netflix highlights black-centred stories led by strong women in familiar genre formats and markets these stories to global viewers. Showmax appears to be courting niche audiences of smaller South African demographics via its streaming offerings, while repurposing satellite TV content for its bigger audiences via the Showmax platform. The local content on Showmax is furthermore influenced by DSTVs investment in audiences on the African continent. OTTs place local content as the site of value and investment but simultaneously transform ideas about what constitutes local TV. The concept of the local is being unhinged from notions of the national because the “local” for global streaming services is fundamentally understood in relation to international distribution networks and global TV trends rather than in terms of immediate local public service mandates, regulations or relevant national discourses. South Africa’s public broadcaster has lurched from one crisis to the next and new streaming platforms offer creatives within the film and television industry new outlets for their work. These platforms also promise to connect local producers with big transnational audiences. But there is reason for vigilance. As quickly as global streaming services have invested money into the local industry, they could withdraw this support, especially if government regulations or problems with infrastructure reduce the profitability of their operations. Local creatives also need to be wary of the potential erasure of nationally specific problems and stories in favour of

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globally palatable genres with little genuine local specificity. Film broadcasting bodies need to maintain investment in  local cinemas television independently of global production companies to ensure our film practitioners maintain distinctive modes of storytelling national character.

and and that and

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Multichoice. (2018). DSTV Annual Compliance Report. ICASA. March 2018, via Icasa.org.za. Retrieved September 10, 2021, from https://www.icasa.org.za/ uploads/files/2018-­2019-­Multichoice-­Compliance-­Report.pdf Multichoice. (2019). Multichoice and M-Net’s Representations in ICASA's Subscription Television Inquiry, 11 May 2018, via Icasa.org.za. ICASA. Retrieved July 19, 2021, from https://www.icasa.org.za/uploads/files/multichoice-­ Inquiry-­into-­Subscription-­TV-­Presentation.pdf Multichoice. (2021). Presentation Draft Findings Document on the Inquiry into Subscription Television Broadcasting Services, 15 January 2021, via Icasa.org.za. ICASA. Retrieved August 30, 2021, from https://www.icasa.org.za/uploads/ files/Multichoice-­Presentation-­d raft-­F indings-­document-­on-­the-­Inquiry-­ into-­Subscription-­Television-­Broadcasting-­Services.pdf National Film and Video Foundation (2021) NFVF and Netflix Sign Partnership to Fund Local Filmmakers. Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://www. nfvf.co.za/home/index.php?ipkMenuID&ipkArticleID=762 Nevill, G. (2020). Do Not Adjust Your Set. The Media Online. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://themediaonline.co.za/2020/11/ do-­not-­adjust-­your-­set/ O’Donnell, M. C., & Stevens, A. H. (2020). Introduction. In M. C. O’Donnell & A.  H. Stevens (Eds.), The Microgenre: A Quick Look at Small Culture (pp. 1–9). Bloomsbury. Özkan, D., & Hardt, D. (2020). The Strong Female Lead: Postfeminist Representation of Women and Femininity in Netflix Shows. In D.  Sezen, F. Çiçekoğlu, A. Tunç, & E. T. Diken (Eds.), Female Agencies and Subjectivities in Film and Television (pp.  165–187). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­56100-­0 Reid, B. (2020). Local Content Grabs the Audiences, But Funding Is a Problem. The Media Online, May 15, 2020. Retrieved from https://themediaonline. co.za/2020/05/local-­c ontent-­g rabs-­t he-­a udiences-­b ut-­f undingis-­a-­problem/ Teer-Tomaselli, R. (2019). South African Television Moves into the Global Age. In S.  Shimpach (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Global Television (pp. 458–468). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315192468 Tengeh, R.  K., & Udoakpan, N. (2021). Over-the-Top Television Services and Changes in Consumer Viewing Patterns in South Africa. Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy, 9(2), 257–277. https://doi.org/10.2478/ mdke-­2021-­0018 Vourlias, C. (2018). For Black Women in South African Film Biz, Equality Still a Struggle. Variety. Retrieved July 21, 2018, from https://variety.com/2018/ film/news/black-­w omen-­i n-­s outh-­a frican-­f ilm-­b iz-­e quality-a-­s truggle1202880315/ Vourlias, C. (2020). Netflix’s Head of African Originals Lays Out Plans for the Continent. Variety. Retrieved February 28, 2020, from https://variety. com/2020/digital/news/netflix-­head-­african-­originals-­lays-­out-­plans-­forcontinent-­1203518648/

CHAPTER 3

Saudi Arabian Television: The Challenge of Connecting with Reality Naomi Sakr

In the early 2000s, when reality TV game show formats were gaining ground across the globe, sage observers of the television industry doubted these would match the ‘staying power over decades’ enjoyed by comedy and drama (Eastman & Ferguson, 2001, 8). Today, two decades later, the future of comedy and drama lies at the heart of challenges facing Saudi Arabian TV, both for those behind the screens and for the growing number of Saudis who want to watch entertaining content that relates to their everyday lives. Saudi Arabia is remarkable both for its high proportion of young people, with those aged 15–39 accounting for 45 per cent of the total (General Authority for Statistics, 2020), and for the way past censorship has denied generations the chance to engage in the kind of storytelling on screen that Saudi writer and producer Hisham Fageeh calls ‘personalized’, ‘authentic and real’ and ‘not sugar-coated’ (quoted in Vivarelli, 2021a). Young Saudis’ prodigious use of YouTube to create their own pioneering drama and comedy outside formal channels was already making waves

N. Sakr (*) CAMRI Arab Media Centre, University of Westminster, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_3

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even before the satirical video ‘No Woman, No Drive’, set to the tune of Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’, brought international fame for Fageeh and Telfaz11 production house when it gained seven million views in four days in October 2013 (Tepper, 2013). But whereas those content creators were once careful to avoid official attention (Smith, 2013), their profile in the Saudi Arabia of the early 2020s has been transformed through official investment aimed at building a major TV and film industry inside the country, as this chapter will show. The question is whether the transformation, which like most Saudi media policies to date appears primarily ‘reactive’ (Kraidy, 2021, 104), will produce something that can legitimately be described as ‘Saudi television’. Or will it, in keeping with past phases of Saudi media expansion led by those in power, depend on an ‘outreach network’ (Al-Rasheed, 2008, 23) of state and non-state actors which deploys Saudi money but remains nervous of Saudi creativity? The question aligns with one asked by Michael Curtin in a lecture reviewing his concept of ‘media capital’ in 2013. Media capital refers to interacting processes that Curtin sees as having played a structuring role in how screen industries develop, involving the logic of capitalist accumulation and challenge of managing creative labour in conditions influenced by national and local institutions. Referring to Chinese policy aimed at containing the impact of US-based television giants, Curtin noted that the Chinese government had fostered new enterprises and manoeuvred foreign joint-venture partners to ‘serve its broader strategic ambition’ of ultimately competing with Hollywood. He explained this ‘surprising turn in official policy’ as being ‘largely premised on official suppositions that popular media have become a crucial means to exercise political and cultural leadership both at home and abroad.’ He went on to query whether such policies could ‘foster truly popular media’ or were doomed to ‘wither in the shadow of official ambition’ (Curtin, 2014, 3). This chapter considers the evolution and trajectory of a problematic construct we will heuristically call ‘Saudi Arabian television’. It does so in light of notions inherent in Curtin’s analysis of the Chinese conundrum, whereby ‘constraints on content’ and privileges for ‘state-sanctioned enterprises’ impede development of those very outputs that are ‘signature genres of the world’s most successful television enterprises’, namely drama and comedy (Curtin, 2014, 12). It starts by reviewing motives for Saudi investment in television from the 1990s to the present day. It goes on to examine how non-Saudi companies and individuals have been engaged to nurture a Saudi-based entertainment industry of international stature.

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From there it explores some background to what is widely portrayed as a ‘new’ approach to screen production in Saudi Arabia and concludes by assessing whether this approach will generate vibrancy and innovation.

Leadership Narratives Promoted via Popular Programming Saudi Arabia is an attractive market for foreign business because it combines size with affluence and its young population is growing rapidly. Ranked among the five most populous Arab states, it has regained what the World Bank calls ‘high-income’ status, along with its rich, but much smaller, oil-exporting Gulf neighbours. As such it is not alone among high-income countries in the Global South, as Chile and Uruguay are in the same category. Its large economy entitles it to membership of the G20 together with eight other Global South countries including Brazil, India and South Africa. But its political system, being indisputably authoritarian, sets it apart from most of the G20 except for China and Russia. It took 152nd place out of a possible 167  in a worldwide democracy index for 2021 (Economist Intelligence, 2022, 16; 29) and its ranking in the Reporters sans frontières World Press Freedom Index (Saudi Arabia | RSF) worsened to 170 out of 180 between 2017 and 2021. A suffocating political system, together with distribution of oil wealth and ruling family patronage in ways that helped to create an ‘oligarchic structure of princes on top of the state’ (Hertog, 2010, 246), are factors underlying the deterritorialization that marked Saudi media expansion through newspapers based abroad in the 1970s and satellite television channels established in London, Rome, Cairo and Beirut in the 1990s and 2000s. That is to say: Saudi ruling family members and their associates sought to capitalise on their personal wealth and international business connections to pursue an agenda of media liberalisation abroad that was impossible under the strict rules controlling television in the kingdom itself in the name of religious conservatism. That they had the tacit blessing of the king and different clusters of senior princes was evidenced in financial and infrastructural support provided through state institutions that allowed and even facilitated reception of these Saudi-owned, foreign-­ based, pan-Arab satellite channels inside Saudi Arabia (Sakr, 2001, 40–49; Sakr, 2007, 169–172). Mohamed Zayani summarises the process (2012, 308) as a ‘dual media strategy’, motivated by a ‘security imperative’,

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involving ‘decentralised, open and modern transnational media systems abroad’ alongside ‘state-controlled and state-managed’ systems at home. In tandem with the ‘centripetal’ domestic media system aimed at upholding religious sensibilities in the interests of perceived political stability, the reach of the ‘centrifugal’ transnational media presence was intended to confront critics, project a favourable image and reinforce Saudi Arabia’s regional standing (Zayani, 2012, 308). A distinction has thus existed since the 1990s between Saudi-owned television and television based in Saudi Arabia. It is this distinction that more recent government policy aimed at investing large sums in a homegrown television industry has sought to dissolve. That policy emerged following the accession of King Salman in 2015. April 2016 saw the launch of Vision 2030, spearheaded by Salman’s son, then Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who was promoted to Crown Prince in 2017, aged 31. Under its first objective of ‘building a more vibrant society’, Vision 2030 envisaged ‘creating a home-grown entertainment industry’ (Grand & Wolff, 2020, 16). Prompted by a McKinsey Global Institute report issued in December 2015 when Saudi Arabia was facing a fiscal downturn (Grand & Wolff, 2020, 12), Vision 2030 provided the basis for a new public relations narrative, both internal and external, that placed Mohammed Bin Salman at the forefront of efforts presented as creating a modern, liberal society that would diversify away from dependence on oil. Behind the rhetoric, however, the Crown Prince’s approach to popular television and its purpose was far from liberal. McKinsey’s researchers had urged shifting from a ‘government-led economic model to a more market-­ based approach’ (quoted in Grand & Wolff, 2020, 65). Yet Mohammed Bin Salman, reportedly long anxious to gain control of the foreign-based television networks privately owned by Saudi moguls (Kerr, 2018), used his new-found power as Crown Prince to do so by force. The key transition took place between November 2017 and early 2018, when the Saudi owners of three television networks involved in the long-­ established decentralised outreach system—Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), Rotana Media Group, and Arab Radio and Television (ART)—were incarcerated in the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh together with around 200 other Saudi tycoons until they agreed to hand over assets to the government under Mohammed Bin Salman. Assets acquired by this means enabled the government to pursue business and political agendas previously associated with the billionaire private network owners, whose status as ‘private’ entrepreneurs was anyway belied by their membership

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of, or close links to, to the ruling family and to each other: Saleh Kamel having initially been a partner with Walid al-Ibrahim in MBC in the early 1990s, and then a partner with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in ART before Alwaleed cut his stake in ART in 2003  in favour of expanding Rotana (Sakr, 2001, 42–43; Sakr, 2007, 122, 174–176). To put the 2017–18 transition to government-dominated entertainment plans in context, it is necessary to dwell a moment on the scale of those owners’ resources, their international connections and their political motives for having invested in TV. Alwaleed, a fixture on the annual Forbes Billionaires List until Forbes removed him and Saleh Kamel in 2018 after the Ritz Carlton episode (Dolan, 2018), acquired shares in global giants such as Time Warner, Disney and News Corp in the 1990s and attracted News Corp investment in Rotana in 2010–12 (Sakr, 2013, 2285). These avenues of media influence enabled him to craft an international image of himself as a liberal progressive, keen on promoting freedom of expression and political reform, albeit within self-serving limits (Sakr, 2013, 2292, 2295–96). Saleh Kamel, who died in 2020, was born into a family with royal connections, which served him in building the Dallah al-Barakah conglomerate and ART (Galal, 2015, 83–86). ART, less glitzy than Rotana or MBC, was intended for a putative silent Muslim majority, propagating Islamic teachings that ‘call for tolerance’ (Galal, 2015, 92). Walid al-Ibrahim, a brother-in-law of King Fahd (ruler from 1982 to 2005) with a US education and assets in the US and UK, launched MBC from a $12 million London headquarters in 1991 with the aim of creating an Arabic equivalent of CNN to fill the gap in Arabic-language television news that had become glaringly apparent when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 (AlSaied, 2015, 99–103; Sakr, 2005, 38–39). After the 9/11 attacks on US buildings in 2001 focused attention on the radicalisation of young Saudis, Al-Ibrahim spoke out against ‘enemies of development’ in the kingdom, saying it was a duty to break with ‘obsolete traditions’ (AlSaied, 2015, 102–103) and ‘get rid of the Taliban mentality’ (quoted in Sakr, 2007, 112). The billionaire owners’ deradicalization agenda was reflected in the type of entertainment shown on their multi-channel networks. A fourth, Orbit pay-TV, also began in the 1990s but merged with Kuwaiti-owned Showtime Arabia in 2009. Under largely non-Arab management (Sakr, 2016, 178–80), the networks showed films, sitcoms, reality shows, animations and music videos imported from Hollywood and elsewhere, thereby avoiding engagement with local talent but incurring the wrath of Saudi

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clerics, for whom Western imports represented the worst depravity. By bringing the TV owners under his control while simultaneously crushing the clerics, Mohammed Bin Salman seemed bent on ending the duality of the kingdom’s foreign-based and locally based television systems. This would be one dimension of a turning point in the historic ‘division of labour’ between Saudi Arabia’s political and religious authorities, whereby clerics endorsed the princes in return for exercising religious control over society, reflecting political ‘instrumentalization’ of religious authority (Mouline, 2015, 66). According to one commentator, Mohammed Bin Salman and ‘his confidants understood intimately the transformative power’ of ‘new forms of communication’ like YouTube, which Saudi satirists and other creatives were using to attract large followings (Smith Diwan, 2018). Hence their determination to ‘establish state control over new media and to unify the public under a new national narrative’, cultivated by co-opting social media influencers as advocates for the new regime (Smith Diwan, 2018). What happened during those months when TV billionaires were detained in the Royal Carlton remained mostly a matter of press conjecture, as those affected had been sworn, in the words of Alwaleed Bin Talal, to secrecy and confidentiality (Schatzker, 2018). Initially it raised doubts among foreign companies about doing business with the regime run by Mohammed Bin Salman, and those doubts were compounded when the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 was also laid at his door. Endeavour, a Hollywood talent agency recruited by the Crown Prince to help develop a Saudi film and television industry, was among the first to sever ties. The scruples did not last long. By January 2021 Hollywood executives were again showing their eagerness to work in Saudi Arabia (Walt, 2021), against a backdrop of heavy government investment in film and television, vocally supported by erstwhile magnates of Saudi-owned TV.  Alwaleed declared that anyone failing to support Mohammed Bin Salman’s ‘new era’ was a ‘traitor’ (Schatzker, 2018). Walid al-Ibrahim, having ceded 60 per cent of MBC ownership to the government, accepted decisive changes in MBC policy in terms of content, production and location. March 2018 saw the sudden axing of highly popular Turkish dramas from three MBC channels and a commitment to hire writers and directors who would produce ‘more premium content Arab dramas’ (Al-Tamimi, 2018). Besides serving the homegrown television project, that decision mirrored official Saudi dislike of Turkish foreign policy. September 2018 saw Peter Smith,

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former president of NBC Universal International, recruited to head the newly created MBC Studios. An MBC statement said the new unit would ‘take the initiative to produce the region’s most compelling stories for cinema, television and on-demand platforms’ capable of being ‘marketed towards five continents’ (Vivarelli, 2018). In February 2020 MBC told Reuters it would be part of creating a new media business and production hub in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and in September 2021 it confirmed that MBC headquarters in Dubai would relocate to Riyadh, with new content also being produced in the kingdom. By that time MBC was already playing a part in fostering a national narrative espoused by Mohammed Bin Salman as to why religious conservatism should no longer be allowed to block Saudi Arabia from joining global entertainment networks. In 2019, during the peak television viewing month of Ramadan, when TV drama series play out over 30 consecutive nights, MBC aired the second season of Al-Assouf (Winds of Change), culminating in a dramatic portrayal of the siege of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Islamist extremists in 1979, widely seen as a watershed moment that turned a more tolerant, less dogmatic Saudi society into the latter-day closed, segregated and puritanical version imposed by the monarchy to avoid further threats to its rule. As an article on the series noted: ‘the siege, long a taboo subject’ was one the Crown Prince was now ‘eager to broach’ (The Economist, 2019). In broaching it, Mohammed Bin Salman courted controversy from ultra-conservatives at home. Their outcry was dismissed by allies of MBC as an attempt to suppress any suggestion that pre-1979 society knew ‘neither hatred nor extremism’ and had ‘all the failings’ associated with any ‘normal society’ (Al-Rashed, 2018). But he was also challenged from abroad, by Jamal Khashoggi writing in The Washington Post, a few months before his murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi’s point was not that Mohammed Bin Salman had been wrong to the tell the US news programme 60 Minutes that life in Saudi Arabia was ‘very normal’ before 1979, but that it was false to absolve the government of ‘any complicity in the [subsequent] adoption of strict Wahhabi doctrine’ and that ‘old tactics of intolerance’ should not be replaced with ‘new ways of repression’ (Khashoggi, 2018).

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Ambiguities and Contradictions in Bringing Television Production Back ‘Home’ Issues highlighted by Khashoggi, namely state responsibility for former and current intolerance of free expression on Saudi screens, have implications for MBC’s relocation to Riyadh, where it comes directly under Saudi Arabian laws. Uncertainties about the implications were underlined by revelations about the unusual jurisdictional status of Neom, a vast $500bn ‘eco-city’ bordering the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba, which is one of several Vision 2030 projects intended to double up as shooting locations for the proclaimed new forward-looking film and television content. According to developers, Neom will ‘exist entirely outside the confines of the current Saudi judicial system, governed by an autonomous legal system that will be drafted up by investors’ (Thomas & Venema, 2022). Australian Wayne Borg, Chief Commercial Officer at the Abu Dhabi media and production hub twofour54 from 2008 to 2013 who was hired to head the media hub at Neom, assured Variety at the end of 2021 that his operation would be under a ‘semi-autonomous jurisdiction in the kingdom’, with its own laws and ‘regulatory frameworks’ designed to attract companies not only wanting to shoot footage but also seeking a regional base (Vivarelli, 2021b). Activities at Neom demonstrate the difficulty of knowing how much of Saudi Arabia’s post-2017 screen industry development is autonomous, semi-autonomous or not autonomous at all, and in what ways it is expected to benefit local Saudis. For example, shooting taking place there, including the MBC-financed film Desert Warrior which was being filmed in 2021, was reportedly described as a way of ‘transferring the knowledge of all the great global talent’ to Saudis, so they could ‘shadow experienced Hollywood hands’ and ‘learn on the job’ (Ritman, 2021). In the case of Desert Warrior, an English-language action movie set in seventh century Arabia and featuring a ‘fierce female hero’ (Goodfellow, 2021), Saudis were said to be learning from a UK director, US production and distribution partners and leading non-Saudi members of the cast. At the same time, forcible eviction of local residents from the desert area earmarked for Neom, including the killing of one man who resisted in 2020 (Thomas & Venema, 2022), confirmed that Saudi authorities had overall charge of the project and had little concern for the interests of grassroot communities. Meanwhile efforts to attract firms to set up bases in Saudi Arabia involved not only the carrot of ‘semi-autonomy’ but also the stick of pressure, with

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reports of companies being told to do so by the start of 2024 or ‘risk losing out on business in the region’s largest economy’ (Fattah, 2021). For Saudi television production that does not benefit from the special arrangements promised for Neom, the regulatory body is the General Commission for Audiovisual Media, set up in 2012 under legislation that charged it with, among other things, monitoring all audiovisual content provision and transmission to ensure it stayed within legal limits and abided by licensing conditions (Arab News, 2012). Despite claims of administrative and financial independence, the Commission was created as an arm of government, being chaired by a minister and including other government representatives and appointees (Arab News, 2012). In line with media regulation in authoritarian systems, its strictures on online and offline content, repeated in Executive Regulations issued in 2018, were so loosely worded as to facilitate interpretations that would suit the ruling power, requiring content to promote family and social values, enhance national cohesion and preserve the social fabric, and avoid subjects related to folklore and tribes (General Commission for Audiovisual Media, 2018). Loose wording also creates unpredictability about whether or not censorship will be enforced, which has a chilling effect on expression. Thus, as explained by a Saudi TV producer in 2021, controls on the statute book that had been minimally enforced over a long period, started to be reapplied more strictly from 2017, even clamping down on forms of humour and satire that had been largely tolerated until then (Anonymous, conversation with the author, October 1, 2021). This was in parallel with a tripling of the number of journalists and bloggers in detention since 2017, according to Reporters sans frontières. A tweet by the country’s public prosecutor in September 2018 said that ‘producing and distributing content that ridicules, mocks, provokes and disrupts public order, religious values and public morals through social media … will be considered a cybercrime punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of three million riyals’ (Brennan, 2018). The warning underlined a paradox whereby outward signs of a new openness in Saudi Arabia, such as the reintroduction of cinemas in 2018 after a ban of more than three decades (Sakr, 2012, 221), removal of religious police from the streets and friendly deals with foreign entertainment companies, were accompanied by tighter margins on what would be permissible on Saudi screens. Despite initial horror at the murder of Khashoggi, media attention was soon distracted by headlines about a ten-­ year plan to invest US$64 billion in upgrading media and entertainment

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(Vivarelli, 2018) as well as the sheer number of projects and their proclaimed benefits for the Saudi population. Less attention was paid to opacity in the institutional architecture behind them. Attracting most publicity for its heavy spending on shares in Disney and other foreign entertainment and gaming companies was the Public Investment Fund (PIF), headed by the Crown Prince. But a Saudi bank with government backing also invested in AGBO, the production company of the American Russo brothers (Walt, 2021), scenes for whose crime drama Cherry were filmed at AlUla, another project, like Neom, spawned by Vision 2030. Based around the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra, AlUla’s first US$15 billion development phase was to be accomplished with French and US companies. Like Neom, it appointed a non-Saudi, Stephen Strachan, as its film commissioner while employing Saudis as assistants on shoots. Meanwhile Six Flags, a Texas-based theme park operator, started work in 2021 on a multi-billion entertainment resort near Riyadh (Walt, 2021). Named Qiddiya and wholly owned by PIF, the resort is described on its website (www.qiddiya.com) as ‘The Capital of Entertainment, Sports and the Arts … not just in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but of the world’—a fun destination that would create jobs for Saudi youth and foster a start-up culture. The website revealed that, alongside his roles as Crown Prince, Prime Minister and Chair of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, Mohammed Bin Salman also chairs the Qiddiya Board of Directors. When it comes to delivering screen content, other entities such as Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Saudi Broadcasting Company (SBC) also feature in headlines, similarly masking the chain of command that leads to the Crown Prince. STC, majority owned by PIF, launched a video streaming service, Jawwy TV, in April 2018 and signed a long-term deal in 2021 to add 4000  h of content from Discovery+ (Arab News, 2021). It was STC that in 2018 announced a sponsorship and TV rights deal to show domestic football matches, prematurely terminating a rights contract that had been signed by MBC. MBC, which had paid US$960 million in 2014 for the rights over ten years against competition from Rotana, was not compensated for the takeover (Al-Omran & Kerr, 2018). MBC also lost its popular talkshow host Dawood al-Shiriyan in late 2017, when he was recruited to head what was then the Saudi Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). In July 2018 SBC changed its English name to Saudi Broadcasting Authority (SBA) to differentiate it from a new SBA channel called SBC, which Shiriyan said would aim most of its content at viewers aged between 15 and 35, thereby attracting strong advertising revenues

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(AFP, 2018). But crossover of personnel between SBA and MBC also worked the other way in 2021, with the appointment of Zeinab Abu Alsamh, until then SBA Chief Commercial Officer, as General Manager of MBC Studios in Saudi Arabia, charged with expanding content production. In her SBA role, she was responsible for launching SBC. With MBC majority owned by the state, and SBA under the Minister of Media, competition between the two may be somewhat superficial. MBC is said to fall under the Ministry of Finance where, according to some reports, it has a degree of ‘manoeuvrability’ (Ritman, 2021). But news that MBC news channels Al-Arabiya and Al-Hadath were starting their move to Riyadh in stages from September 2021 (Fattah, 2021) showed that flexibility for the network was relative.

The Not-So-New, the Long-Desired and the Yet-To-Be-Tested Continuity in personnel running Saudi television provides a further counterpoint to the Vision 2030 claim of rupture with an aberrant conservative past. The sense of rupture is reinforced by a heavy focus on the here-and-­ now that is characteristic of a news agenda speeded up by social media. But stressing a push to train Saudis in screen production can give a misleading impression. Local Saudi creativity in screen content was much in evidence long before Mohammed Bin Salman came to power. Two companies set up in 2010, UTURN and C3, owner of Telfaz11 production house mentioned above, soon showed, through their use of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, how readily young Saudi audiences would turn to the web for content that was serious and relevant but would also make them laugh. Their operations built in turn on a common Saudi practice of making and circulating homemade video as an alternative to the sanitised fare available on local channels. People behind UTURN and C3 explained their success by reference to the instant feedback available through online posting and young people’s rejection of the ‘idealised picture of Saudi life … remote from the experiences of most viewers’ offered by state TV (Smith, 2013). Traditional media companies ‘create content that is disconnected from reality’, said one (Smith, 2013). Back in the 1990s, however, satire was occasionally permitted on state TV, which carried the highly popular series Tash ma Tash (roughly translatable as No Big Deal) for 13 seasons from 1993 before it moved to MBC

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(Sakr, 2007, 129). Saudi TV actor Nasser al-Qasabi, who played the leading man in MBC’s drama serial Al-Assouf, was long known to viewers through his appearances in Tash ma Tash, which took the opportunity in an episode in 2006 to satirise strict male-female segregation, triggering media commentary on the same issues raised in Al-Assouf, namely how Saudi society was less rigid before the 1980s (Sakr, 2008, 392). When Saudi TV created its own news channel, Al-Ekhbariya, in 2004, with female newsreaders and presenters, it did so with the express intention of disavowing a ‘fundamentalist’ image and moving from a defensive editorial position on Saudi society to a more critical one that could face world-­ class competition (Sakr, 2008, 397–398). Rotana’s repeated attempts to push screen industries forward through its social commentary films Keif el-Hal? (How are you?) and Menahi (based on a popular television character) were forced to a halt by government agencies in 2009, but not before they had helped to establish the reputations of Saudi actors and directors, male and female, and lend credibility to the idea of a screen industry career (Sakr, 2012, 223–225). Academic research on Saudi public opinion conducted in the early 2000s, prompted by international outrage at Saudi extremists’ involvement in the 9/11 attacks of 2001, painted a picture of a society less conservative than expected and, in the extent of its approval ratings for democracy, much less supportive of the ‘nonresponsive and authoritarian ruling family’ than the government would have the population believe (Moaddel, 2006, 86, 104). Intricate analysis of data from more than 1000 Saudi respondents, equally divided between men and women and selected randomly from all regions, ages, socio-economic groupings and educational levels, revealed that their attitudes were less conservative on issues related to religiosity, marriage, women, work and children than those of their counterparts in Egypt and Jordan (Moaddel, 2006, 103–104) and that 58 per cent took the view that democracy is the best form of government—a figure which rose to 71 per cent of those who expressed an opinion as opposed to being ‘don’t knows’ (Moaddel, 2006, 86). People surveyed were not members of an upper-class elite: 82 per cent were middle class, 80 per cent had less than a university education and 85 per cent were aged between 15 and 44. Saudi creatives who have been given the chance in the Vision 2030 era to hone their screenwriting and production skills aspire to tell stories that are connected to reality, and foreign mentors do not doubt their ability to do so. Two US tutors on the Middle East Media Initiative (MEMI)

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mentorship scheme for Arab writers, launched with US financial backing at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts in 2018, expressed admiration for the ten writers and seven producers from four Arab countries including Saudi Arabia who took part in the first round. One said the writers ‘would be amazing in any room and are the equal’ of writers ‘anywhere’, added to which they were having to pitch in English and not in their own language (Saval, 2019). Another was convinced that they wanted to develop ‘character-based, real-life narratives on the region they come from’, using the ‘medium of TV to spread a deeper message about humanity in that area.’ One problem they faced, however, according to both participants and mentors, was that they had to write ‘in a kind of a vacuum with a lack of community’ (Saval, 2019). Hisham Fageeh of Telfaz11, one of the participants, also blamed constraints imposed by television conventions, whereby 30-episode Ramadan drama serials are seen as the dominant genre in the Arab region, leading even the best writers to end up being boring ‘from episode 20’ (Saval, 2019). Netflix involvement with Saudi writers and producers has liberated them from such conventions. Telfaz11 co-founder Alaa Yousef Fadan was approached by Netflix in 2019 and showed them six short films that Netflix packaged as a series called Six Windows in the Desert. One of the six, by Ali Kalthami, offers an allegory on the idea of Saudi Arabia regaining its sight after a period of blindness towards acting and the arts. Commenting on these glimpses into Saudi society, Fadan told a reporter: ‘It is not just that we are misunderstood … but that the world just did not see us at all” (Walt, 2021, 107). For Netflix, exposing Saudi productions to a wider world helps to expand its subscriber base. Such productions include Masameer County, an Arabic-language animation series made by Saudi studio Myrkott, which had its first eight-episode season aired in 2021. Netflix promoted the show as a ‘humorous view of a changing Saudi Arabia, as the Masameer gang venture into a global media war, a long-standing tribal feud, and a health craze gone too far.’ Netflix signed a 5-year deal with Myrkott in 2020 to produce Saudi-focused shows and films, having premiered Masameer: The Movie. It signalled how far the content scene had come since MBC tried to air Al-Shamshoon in 2005 as an Arabised version of the American animation series The Simpsons. MBC failed so dismally to reconcile lifestyle differences between the US and the Gulf (reflected in references to alcohol, taverns, pork, doughnuts and so on) that it had to stop the show before all episodes were shown.

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The Netflix deal could not guarantee, however, that Myrkott’s output would always be screened in Saudi Arabia, as Netflix had already demonstrated in 2019 that it would geo-block items if these were found to contravene Saudi laws by criticising those in power (Sakr, 2022). Fadi Ismail, former director of MBC’s O3 production arm and the brains behind MBC’s widely acclaimed run of successes with Turkish-made drama serials, chose Abu Dhabi as the base for his DKL Studio project, which aimed to target Saudi audiences while testing the boundaries of social drama by, among other things, serialising Saudi novelist Sahar Bahrawi’s Englishlanguage book, Confined, about a Saudi hermaphrodite’s struggle to change her sex. That strict boundaries on screen content remained in place inside Saudi Arabia was seen again in February 2020 when Asayel al-Bishi, a female rapper, was pulled in for questioning after releasing a song called Bint Mecca (Mecca Girl) that celebrated Mecca women and resulted in the governor of Mecca calling for her arrest. The video was removed from YouTube, with Al-Bishi declaring that she would make sure to get the right permit next time (Al-Arabiya English, 2020). Having been appointed director of the MEMI mentoring programme in 2021, Hisham Fageeh said a future test for Arab writers would be whether they could move from ‘writing intellectually’ to writing ‘viscerally and emotionally’, going beyond the plot-driven narratives typical of Arab drama to develop ‘compelling characters’ from ‘actual life’, where ‘authenticity and truth’ shine through (Vivarelli, 2021a). ‘Every society has its storytelling that is intrinsic to its people’ and represents them, he said, naming Saudi Arabia in particular. But, he acknowledged, it was also important not to offend people who are ‘not generally ready to face themselves’ (Vivarelli, 2021a). Other than feedback gathered online, audience measurement in the kingdom has been hampered for decades by the absence of a credible ratings system. This was underlined yet again in February 2022 with an announcement that audience data would ‘soon’ be collected from 2000 households in a metering system set up in partnership with US-based ratings giant Nielsen and approved by the General Commission for Audiovisual Media. That overdue news coincided with the release of survey findings by management consultancy Kearney showing a strong appetite among Saudi residents for local content in Arabic and a readiness, especially among those aged 18–34, to pay for quality videoon-demand (Arab News, 2022). Such readiness helps to explain the success of MBC’s Shahid Plus subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service, which is believed to have

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stayed ahead of Netflix in subscriber numbers inside Saudi Arabia. But there is inevitable suspicion that the state shareholding in MBC leads to its drama content being instrumentalised for political ends. Umm Haroun, a drama serial shown in Ramadan 2020, loosely based on Bahrain’s Jewish families in the 1940s and portraying peaceful co-existence of different faith communities in the Gulf, was widely interpreted as laying the ground for eventual normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Messages were also read into the plot of Arabic crime thriller series Rashash, an MBC Group first in running to eight episodes instead of 30 and featuring an all-Saudi cast in the lead roles. Written and directed by two Britons, Tony Jordan and Collin Teague, Rashash followed actual events in the 1980s when a drug-trafficker and murderer from a prominent tribe was pursued by an upstanding officer from the same tribe. Despite high-end production values in the action scenes, there were questions as to how far non-Saudis could authentically capture nuances in tribal relationships.

Conclusion There is a consensus among many Saudi creatives that Saudi television and Saudi society would benefit from content, especially drama and comedy, that ‘connects with reality’ and that the talent to create such content exists. Yet evidence in this chapter raises doubts about how soon and to what extent the authorities will tolerate this happening. Curtin noted in relation to China (2014) that political leaders’ attempts to co-opt popular media to their agenda risk being undermined by constraints on content as well as privileges for state enterprises, because of the way these factors inhibit screen production that resonates with ordinary people. Structural change in Saudi television, brought about under the umbrella of Vision 2030, has centralised ownership and control of content creation and related leisure industries, forced the leading pan-Arab television network to relocate from Dubai to Riyadh where it will operate under Saudi laws, and created a situation where foreign businesses can be coerced into doing likewise. Centralised controls are camouflaged behind the co-opting of liberal-sounding non-Saudi managers for big projects and the much-­ publicised involvement of US and UK screenwriters and directors in developing ‘homegrown’ entertainment. Detention of a female rapper in 2020 drew a social media comment to the effect that the government was bringing in ‘western influencers to artwash the regime’ while attacking

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‘real Saudi women who try to artistically express their cultural identities’ (quoted in BBC, 2020). Censorship, jailing and killing of Saudi artists and journalists are starkly at odds with the country’s self-proclaimed modernisation project, a contradiction explained by some as meaning that change will only ‘occur on the crown prince’s terms, rather than in response to public demand’ (Grand & Wolff, 2020, 55). The same analysts warn that the government needs to ‘cede some of its dominant role in the economy to the marketplace’ so the private sector can become competitive, because no company will want to ‘compete against state-owned entities, which often play by different rules and receive subsidized funding’ (Grand & Wolff, 2020, 65). In a country where the political system inhibits independent local experimental cultural production through recognised local channels, incentives to innovate by ‘connecting with reality’ are limited.

References AFP. (2018). New Saudi TV Station Feeds into Modernisation Drive. The National, May 13. Al-Arabiya English. (2020). Saudi Female ‘Mecca Girl’ Rapper: I Was Not Detained, Planning New Video. Al-Arabiya English. March 1. Retrieved from https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2020/03/01/ Saudi-­female-­Bint-­Mecca-­rapper-­I-­was-­not-­detained-­planning-­new-­video-­ Al-Omran, Ahmad and Simeon Kerr. 2018. “Saudis Grab TV Rights to Domestic Football.” Financial Times, February 7. Arab News. (2012). Authority to Monitor Audiovisual Media. Arab News, February 28. Arab News (2021). Discovery+ Comes to STC’s Jawwy TV. Arab News, February 25. Arab News (2022). Saudi Residents Want More Local Arabic TV Content. Arab News, 1 February. Al-Rashed, Abdulrahman. (2018). Why the Fight Against ‘Al-Asouf’?, Arab News. , May 23 Al-Rasheed, M. (2008). An Assessment of Saudi Political, Religious and Media Expansion. In M.  Al-Rasheed (Ed.), Kingdom Without Borders (pp.  1–38). Hurst Publishers. AlSaied, N. (2015). Walid al-Ibrahim: Modernising Mogul of MBC. In D. Della Ratta, N.  Sakr, & J.  Skovgaard-Petersen (Eds.), Arab Media Moguls (pp. 97–112). I B Tauris.

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Al-Tamimi, J. (2018). Call to Cultivate Arab Dramas After MBC Pulls Plug on Turkish Soaps. Gulf News, March 5, 2018. Retrieved from https://gulfnews. c o m / w o r l d / g u l f / s a u d i / c a l l -­t o -­c u l t i v a t e -­a r a b -­d r a m a s -­a f t e r mbc-­pulls-­plug-­on-­turkish-­soaps-­1.2183003 BBC. (2020). Saudi Rapper Faces Arrest for Mecca Girl Music Video. BBC, February 22. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ world-­middle-­east-­51597561 Brennan, D. (2018). Saudi Arabia Will Now Punish Online Satire with Five-Year Jail Term. Newsweek, September 5. Curtin, M. (2014). In the Shadow of Official Ambition: National Media Policy Confronts Global Media Capital. CARGC Papers, 7 https://repository.upenn. edu/cargc_papers/7 Dolan, K. (2018). Why No Saudi Arabians Made the Forbes Billionaires List This Year. Forbes, March 6, 2018. Why No Saudi Arabians Made The Forbes Billionaires List This Year Eastman, S. T., & Ferguson, D. A. (2001). Broadcast/Cable/Web Programming: Strategies and Practices (6th ed.). Wadsworth Publishing. Economist Intelligence. (2022). Democracy Index 2021: The China Challenge. EIU. Fattah, Zeinab. 2021. Bloomberg August 31, Saudi TV Stations Begin Shift to Riyadh in challenge to Dubai. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-31/saudi-tv-stations-begin-shift-to-riyadh-inchallenge-to-dubai Galal, E. (2015). Saleh Kamal: Investing in Islam. In D. Della Ratta, N. Sakr, & J. Skovgaard-Petersen (Eds.), Arab Media Moguls (pp. 81–95). I B Tauris. General Authority for Statistics. (2020). Population Estimates. General Authority for Statistics. General Commission for Audiovisual Media. (2018). Executive Regulations [In Arabic]. executive-regulations.pdf (gcam.gov.sa). Goodfellow, M. (2021). MBC Teams with JB Pictures, AGC Studios on Saudi Shoot ‘Desert Warrior’. Screen Daily, November 15. Grand, S., & Wolff, K. (2020). Assessing Saudi Vision 2030: A 2020 Review. Atlantic Council Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Hertog, S. (2010). Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia. Cornell University Press. Kerr, S. (2018). Top Saudi Broadcaster Caught Up in Riyadh’s Corruption Shakedown. Financial Times, January 26. Khashoggi, Jamal. 2018. By Blaming 1979 for Saudi Arabia’s Problems, the Crown Prince Is Peddling Revisionist History. The Washington Post, April 3. Kraidy, M. (2021). Saudi Arabia: From National Media to Global Player. In C.  Richter & C.  Kozman (Eds.), Arab Media Systems (pp.  91–107). Open Book Publishers.

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Moaddel, M. (2006). The Saudi Public Speaks: Religion, Gender, and Politics. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 38, 79–108. Mouline, N. (2015). Enforcing and Reinforcing the State’s Islam. In B. Haykel, T. Hegghammer, & S. Lacroix (Eds.), Saudi Arabia in Transition (pp. 48–67). Cambridge University Press. Ritman, A. (2021). MBC Studios’ Saudi Arabia Boss on ‘New Era’. The Hollywood Reporter, November 24. Sakr, N. (2001). Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East. I B Tauris. Sakr, N. (2005). Channels of Interaction: The Role of Gulf-Owned Media Firms in Globalisation. In P. Dresch & J. Piscatori (Eds.), Monarchies and Nations (pp. 34–35). I B Tauris. Sakr, N. (2007). Arab Television Today. I B Tauris. Sakr, N. (2008). Women and Media in Saudi Arabia: Rhetoric, Reductionism and Realities. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 35(3), 385–404, December. Sakr, N. (2012). Placing Political Economy in Relation to Cultural Studies: Reflections on the Case of Cinema in Saudi Arabia. In T. Sabry (Ed.), Arab Cultural Studies: Mapping the Field (pp. 214–233). I B Tauris. Sakr, N. (2013). Where Arab Media Magnates Stand vis-à-vis Globalized Media Flows: Insights from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Communication, 7, 2285–2302. Sakr, N. (2016). ‘Media Globalization’ as Survival Strategy for Authoritarian Regimes. In T.  Flew, P.  Iosifidis, & J.  Steemers (Eds.), Global Media and National Policies: The Return of the State (pp. 173–189). Palgrave Macmillan. Sakr, N. (2022). Purposes and Practices of MENA Television: Components of an Ever-Evolving Medium. In J. F. Khalil, G. Khiabany, T. Guaaybess, & B. Yesil (Eds.), The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East. Wiley. Saval, M. (2019). USC’s Middle East Media Program Sparks Inclusive Change in TV Industry. Variety, May 10. Schatzker, Erik. 2018. Prince Alwaleed Reveals Secret Deal Struck to Exit Ritz After 83 Days. Bloomberg, March 20, 2018. Alwaleed Reveals Secret Deal Struck to Exit Ritz After 83 Days -­Bloomberg Smith, M. (2013). Young Saudis Getting Creative on YouTube. Reuters, 18 November. h t t p s : / / w w w . r e u t e r s . c o m / a r t i c l e / u s -­s a u d i -­y o u t u b e idUSBRE9AH0GY20131118 Smith Diwan, K. (2018). Mohammed Bin Salman’s Media Obsession—And What It Means for Dissent. Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, 30 October. Mohammed bin Salman’s Media Obsession – and What it Means for Dissent – Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (agsiw.org) Tepper, F. (2013). ‘No Woman, No Drive’: Who is Hisham Fageeh?. Christian Science Monitor, 30 October. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-­ News/2013/1030/No-­Woman-­No-­Drive-­Who-­is-­Hisham-­Fageeh

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The Economist. (2019). Princely Drama. The Economist. June 1, 2019, 79. Thomas, M., & Venema, V. (2022). Neom: What’s the Green Truth Behind a Planned Eco-City in the Saudi Desert? BBC News, https://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/blogs-­trending-­59601335 Vivarelli, N. (2018). Peter Smith to Head MBC Studios, Aims to Kick-Start Saudi Productions. Variety, September 18. Vivarelli, N. (2021a). Saudi Multi-hyphenate Hisham Fageeh on How Hollywood Mentoring Can Help Arab TV. Variety, December 4. Vivarelli, N. (2021b). NEOM Media Hub Chief Wayne Borg on Saudi Arabia’s Effort to Foster a Film and TV Industry from a Futuristic City. Variety, December 9. Walt, V. (2021). Entertaining the ‘New Saudi’. Fortune, 101–107, ­ August/ September. Zayani, M. (2012). Traditional Media, Regional Politics and State Security: Saudi Arabia between Tradition and Modernity. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 39(3), 307–327.

CHAPTER 4

Surviving Digital Disruptions: The Future of Television in Kenya Nancy Kacungira and Mike Owuor

Introduction Increased internet access and new technologies are driving the rapid transformation of the media landscape in Kenya. Particularly notable has been the disruption of the television audience’s consumption patterns, and consequently, the content strategies and revenue models of traditional broadcasting platforms. Dominated for decades by analogue free-to-air broadcasting with only a few channels to choose from, Kenya’s television ecosystem is now populated by new entrants leveraging digital platforms, reinvented multinational pay-TV providers, and global streaming services targeting the local market. This chapter looks at Kenya’s evolving television landscape and how various players, particularly the traditional television stations, are adapting for the future. Our discussion is largely based on semi-structured interviews with experienced and knowledgeable industry players in the

N. Kacungira BBC World News, BBC, London, UK M. Owuor (*) Sunday Nation, Nation Media Group, Nairobi, Kenya © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_4

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country. We start with a contextual introduction to the media landscape in Kenya before delving into four primary factors that we argue will define the shape of Kenya’s television future: technology, content, audiences and revenue models.

Kenya’s Media Landscape Kenya’s mediascape is considered one of Africa’s most vibrant and independent. Mwita (2021) notes that recent significant changes in the print, broadcast and digital media have not only challenged the dominance of the traditional media organisations and platforms but also increased access to information. Tully (2021), Mwita (2021) and the Media Council of Kenya (MCK, 2020) point out the complexity of the Kenyan media landscape—buoyed by increased internet access and smartphone use—with the sources of content going up from a few mainstream media outlets to a multiplicity of digital platforms, mostly social media (Tifa, 2019; Wamuyu, 2020). This expansion has been buttressed by a new Constitution promulgated in 2010 that protects media freedom, the freedom of expression and access to information, while providing a new regulatory environment through the Communications Authority of Kenya and the Media Council of Kenya. However, the gains and hopes of diversity still face the bulwark of cross-­ media ownership (Ambala, 2014; Nyabuga & Booker, 2013). The major media organisations—Nation Media Group, the Standard Group, Royal Media Services, Mediamax and Radio Africa Group—variously own key radio, print, television and digital establishments. This concentration of ownership in the hands of a few influential individuals with political and business connections has for long been noted as a threat to plurality and diversity of voices (Ambala, 2014; Obuya, 2021). The counter argument, however, is that the bigger and more influential multimedia organisations make more economic sense and are good for Kenya’s media landscape and democratic space. Nonetheless, the hegemony of the mainstream media organisations is increasingly being punctured by growing access to the internet and consequent rise of social media use in Kenya, underpinning disruptions that are causing declines in audience numbers and revenue in traditional media outlets (Tifa, 2019). For instance, print circulation has been on a steady decline (MCK, 2020; Mwita, 2021) in the last decade, while the 2015 migration from analogue to digital transmission allowed more

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television channels onto the scene, fragmenting the audience further (Tifa, 2019). Radio has also been hit by similar declines in audiences (MCK, 2020). The disruption occasioned  by technological advancement does not mean that mainstream media are no longer essential (Wilding et  al., 2018) or on their deathbed, what it has done is to diminish their dominant role of content generation and distribution (Awiti et  al., 2020; Tifa, 2019). Beyond this, audiences are supplementing their content needs with social media activity, including sharing content from various sources, following influential individuals online and engaging in citizen journalism. Other than WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and other social media sites are popular as sources of information in Kenya. Search engines and aggregators are also becoming key players in Kenya’s increasingly sophisticated mediascape (Mwita, 2021; Tifa, 2019). Television, which remains the leading source of news in Kenya, and with high trust levels (MCK, 2020), has particularly been impacted by these technological disruptions (Tifa, 2019). More than two decades ago, Owen (1999) noted how the rapid changes in technology, especially the internet, would play a big role in reshaping television. These  technological developments have now  challenged the narrow definition of television necessitating a broadening of what can be defined as television, including for the purposes of this chapter. Today, the transmission and reception of broadcast signals have many digital options, including internet streaming, and reach a range of devices—from smart phones and laptops to smart televisions. Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have also become a central source of television content (Wamuyu, 2020). streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Showmax are also sources of television content today. The options for television have grown exponentially. Broadcasting in Kenya—starting with radio in 1928—was set up to fulfill the political ends of the British colonial administration (Ambala, 2014; King’ara, 2014; Mitullah et al., 2014). Television was introduced in 1962, when the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (at some point rebranded to Voice of Kenya) was established, to continue with the colonial agenda that overlapped into the post-independent government (Ambala, 2014; King’ara, 2014). Given the initial narrow target, and because TV sets were

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for a long time affordable only to a few elites, the growth and evolution of television was slow. Besides, many households across the country were not connected to the electricity grid, and this compounded the problem for many years. Additionally, King’ara (2014) notes that the limited number of transmission stations denied many parts of the country access to television. For 28 years, State broadcaster KBC was the only free-to-air television station until the Kenya Television Network (KTN) was licensed in 1990. Despite KTN having links to the ruling regime of President Daniel arap Moi, the first privately-owned station provided a new voice in the sector and eventually paved the way for the liberalisation of the airwaves that allowed the setting up of more stations. Television in Kenya has thus in effect gone from being the sole operation of the State broadcaster—with limited reach, relying on black-and-white television technology and with limited viewing hours’ to today’s complex multiplicity of channels, particularly after the 2015 digital migration and growth of the internet (Tifa, 2019). However, as alluded to earlier, the dominance of the mainstream TV stations owned by the biggest media organisations in the country, though challenged, has remained (Mwita, 2021). Citizen TV, NTV, KTN Home, KTN News, Inooro TV, K24 and KBC still attract the biggest audiences (MCK, 2020). In the next section, we discuss how the evolving technological changes are impacting on television in Kenya.

Technology as a Catalyst for Change In a media ecosystem noted as one of Africa’s most sophisticated and complex (KNBS, 2021; Mwita, 2021), television stations in Kenya have since the liberalisation of the airwaves in the 1990s, thrived on gradual and relatively predictable technological changes. However, a senior newsroom manager we interviewed for this study notes that the last 10 years have “made possible—actually accelerated—what we imagined belonged to the distant future” (Senior newsroom manager. Interview by authors, July 30, 2021). In Kenya, the transformations have occurred in the broader context of improved internet infrastructure and access, a boom in the telecommunications sector that has enabled innovations like mobile money platforms and affordable smartphones, a new regulatory environment, advanced

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television technology and the growth of social media. This environment, argued the senior newsroom manager, has meshed with sector-specific factors that have affected transmission, content, newsroom workflow, journalistic practices, business models and regulatory concerns (Senior Newsroom Manager, Interview by authors, July 30, 2021). A significant technological shift was the 2015 digital migration implemented by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA)—as part of a gradual global process—that allowed in more television channels and diminished the advantage of capital-intensive transmission equipment investments by the major stations. A recent regulatory report noted there were 130 commercial free-to-air television stations in Kenya by the end of June 2021, with new entrants noted in quarterly reports since 2015 (CA, 2020). Technology, argues a media trainer we interviewed, has democratised the media landscape, both in terms of making it easier to set up a television channel and providing access to a variety of content to audiences—mostly grassroots issues or specialised content—bringing TV closer to the viewer (Media Trainer, Interview by authors, August 26, 2021). Other infrastructural challenges such as poor reception in regions with no broadcast transmission facilities have also been mitigated with the rollout of digital transmission. A media strategist argued that “the country is becoming flat”, noting how prior to the digital transition “if a region had no transmission facility—or a satellite from such a station was facing a certain direction—reception of some or all free-to-air television channels would either be impossible or poor. But with digital transmission, aided by set-top boxes, access has been expanded.” (Media Strategist, Interview by authors, August 3, 2021). However, despite the rising number of channels, the major stations still attract the highest viewership and advertising (Mwita, 2021; Tifa, 2019; MCK, 2020). Poor quality content and a lack of professionalism among most of the new players have undermined the growth of the sector. This is partly explained by the fact that many “underestimated how expensive it is to run a 24-hour television operation despite the ease of transmission” (Senior Newsroom Manager. Interview by authors, July 30, 2021). The industry players we interviewed argue that the brands of the major television channels remain strong across platforms and will continue dominating in the near future despite the disruptive effects of digital migration. Further, the major channels are likely to take advantage of new

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transmission technology and shared newsroom resources to open new channels that target niche audiences. This is already happening and could be intensified in the future. For example, in 2015 Royal Media Services, which owns Citizen TV, Kenya’s leading channel, started Gikuyu language Inooro TV that has the highest ratings in the vernacular television stations segment and is among the most watched channels overall (MCK, 2020). Standard Group, which runs KTN Home, has started KTN News for current affairs, Burudani TV for entertainment and Farmers TV for agribusiness. In the newsroom, many technological changes have had demonstrable impact on operations. Apart from studios becoming more digital, commonly used equipment are now much smaller and therefore easier to manage, thus resources are more efficiently used. This includes lighter tripods, more powerful microphones, smaller and sharper cameras and storage on SD cards rather than tapes. These changes have, for instance, neutered the central role once played by the outside broadcasting (OB) van. (News anchor, Interview by authors, July 23, 2021). Within this decade, a leading mainstream Kenyan television station with six OB vans lost the advantage of going live from multiple locations compared to competitors with one or two vans. Today, the ability to go live from anywhere in Kenya with affordable equipment that can fit in a backpack or an application installed on a smartphone has made it unnecessary to invest millions of shillings in buying an OB van (ibid.). The implication is that in some instances one person with a smartphone or camera can go live, instead of 10 or more people needed to operate an OB van. Improved and easily accessible editing software also allow reporters in the field to send clips ready for airing or upload directly on social media. Further, the reality of the technological dynamism was evident in the weeks following the announcement of the first Covid-19 case in Kenya in March 2020. Media organisations adopted new operational strategies, including working in shifts and from home. Citizen TV stood out with anchors presenting the 7pm and 9pm prime news live from their homes. Today, virtual interviews using video applications are part of Kenya’s post-­ pandemic television scene. Technology has also made newsrooms in Kenya smaller and more agile; making it easier to deploy, air breaking news or go live (Media executive, Interview by authors, August 10, 2021).

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One media trainer argues that the future “belongs to those who make smart technological investments that will not be quickly rendered obsolete, and those who want to reap the digital dividend in the future must invest now in equipment, skilled personnel and a coherent forward-­ looking strategy (Media Trainer, Interview by authors, August 26, 2021).

The Disruptive Influence of Social Media and Other Digital Platforms Around the world, social media has disrupted the monopoly that journalists and mainstream media had over content creation. With news breaking instantly on social media and citizen journalists possessing the ability to record, curate and share content, mainstream television stations in Kenya have been forced to enhance their online presence “both as a survival and growth strategy”, with companion websites and social media accounts that have built up a huge following (Digital producer, Interview by authors, August 15, 2021). The digital producer, who works for a mainstream television station, further notes that social media statistics and trends are now essential in newsroom content planning meetings. Mainstream media organisations share live content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. They also post clips of individual stories or full news bulletins online. New and more agile players are reaping the digital affordances of social media by getting into the television space as content creators. The most popular include channels or accounts built around the personal brands of comedians, musicians, journalists who once worked for mainstream television stations and a range of online influencers. In an increasingly complex ecosystem, international subscriptions-­ based streaming services like Netflix, Showmax and Amazon Prime have also leveraged technology to enter the Kenyan market, drawing audiences away from mainstream television channels. They give local audiences access to a huge amount of content and with high quality transmission. (Digital Producer. Interview by authors, August 15, 2021). Similar technology has been adopted by local mainstream stations. The most notable success has been the Video-on-Demand platform Viusasa—a corruption of the English word ‘view’ and Kiswahili for ‘now’—run by Royal Media Services, which also owns Citizen TV. The application has

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become part of everyday Kenyan language and the Kiswahili expression ‘Utanionea Viusasa’ (you will watch me on Viusasa) or ‘Utaionea ViuSasa (you will watch it on Viusasa). This is a commonly used expression which means, “you have no chance of meeting someone face to face or seeing something in person”. A media executive we interviewed points out that the app thrives on original local content in Kiswahili and vernacular languages (Interview by authors, August 10, 2021). It also allows subscribers to watch episodes of popular local soaps in advance, ahead of traditional television viewers. The app often has mobile data deals with telecommunications company Safaricom. Moreover, Safaricom’s mobile money platform, M-Pesa, is used to pay for the daily subscriptions whose model targets a low-income mass market. The Viusasa platform also integrates ‘ViuPay’, that allows payment of utility bills, games, e-learning, live concerts, jobs, tenders listings and a chat platform named ‘Xpressionz’. A development in 2021 being watched closely by players in the television ecosystem was the launch of a mobile-first Video-on-Demand subscription service ‘Baze’ by Safaricom. The service hosts short videos from content creators who would ordinarily post them on YouTube. The telecommunications company has also been selling its brand of android box, suggesting its interest in Kenya’s television industry. While still admittedly nascent, the industry players we interviewed for this study argue that diversifying to Video-on-Demand services, either by starting own platforms or partnering with existing platforms, may be a viable alternative distribution channel and revenue source for local television in future. Our interviews also suggest that there is broad agreement within newsrooms that to complement television sets, traditional channels must start thinking of the mobile device as the first screen and create suitable content. In this fluid future, having a ‘cautious dance’, as one senior newsroom manager put it, with big technology companies that control the online platforms—especially Google and Facebook—could enable the content of Kenya’s mainstream television stations to reach more people and improve revenues. Nonetheless, some caution that television stations should be dynamic in their social media strategy since it is algorithms and the companies behind the platforms that are in control (Digital Producer, Interview by authors, August 15, 2021). The next section discusses the central role that content will play in this evolving television landscape.

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The Primacy of Content Television broadcasters in Kenya face increased competition stemming from the abundance of content that now exists online. As earlier discussed, the 2015 digital migration led to a proliferation of television channels. The centrality of legacy television stations in the Kenyan media landscape is therefore being challenged not just by new channels, but also by smaller, independent digital media producers (Awiti et al., 2020, 16) as well as by streaming services that are no longer merely platforms for the consumption of foreign films and television programmes. Online platforms are now also investing in the production and licensing of their own localised content—thus coming into direct competition with Kenyan mainstream broadcasters. For example, Showmax, a Video-on-Demand service owned by multinational company MultiChoice, adapted ‘The River’, a South African drama series, into a hugely popular Kenyan version called ‘Kina’. The VoD industry in Kenya is nascent, but is being heavily promoted by players like Netflix, Showmax and Viusasa—buoyed by improving internet speeds and the uptake of smart TVs (Ipsos, 2020a, 2020b). This is a global phenomenon that the outgoing Chief Executive of the New York Times comments on thus: “For now it makes sense for the streamers to co-produce and share rights in the country of product. Don’t expect that to last. Soon they’ll want it all… Conventional broadcasters—and I include conventional cable and satellite players—who do not have a compelling pure-play digital strategy of their own risk being priced out of the best talent and best content. Even in their hey-day, they’d have struggled to compete with these giants” (WAN-­ IFRA, 2020).

An online editor, working in Nairobi for an international news organization confessed to rarely watching local television anymore (Interview  by authors, September 3, 2021). His media consumption habits include Netflix and Showmax for movies, social media, foreign and local websites or YouTube for news, and satellite pay-TV for international sports. For most Kenyans however, internet remain high (Alliance for Affordable Internet, 2019) limiting access to such content. Increasingly however, local telecoms companies are launching campaigns promoting discounted data

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packages to drive uptake (Ipsos, 2020a, 2020b). There has also been significant investment in the country’s fiber network. With more foreign content producers serving the Kenyan market, audiences are diversifying their viewing choices, selecting different channels for different needs and purposes. When it comes to news, local content is preferred over foreign content, even though viewers prefer foreign movies to local ones (MCK, 2020). Viewers turn to local TV stations to understand news events closest and most relevant to them, and to international news providers to contextualize and expand their understanding of global issues. According to the online editor we interviewed, when global news media report on Kenya, that content is highly scrutinised by Kenyan viewers because it is seen to represent “how we are seen by the rest of the world”, and so viewers exhibit strong negative reactions to adverse stories about Kenya—except when they are negative about politicians (Interview with Online Editor, September 3, 2021). The future success of local television stations in Kenya could thus be closely linked to their ability to develop a strong local voice and narrative even as they incorporate the foreign or transnational. This may however become even more challenging as more foreign broadcasters and streaming services embark on making international as well as local productions that look and feel Kenyan. Our interviewees were broadly agreeable that local broadcasters will have to focus on the relevance, accessibility and quality of their content. Market realities are exerting pressure on Kenyan media companies to pay keener attention to supply-side challenges: increased competition from other producers of the same type of content, as well as demand-side challenges: how audiences access, perceive, react to, and interact with that content. According to a senior programme manager at one of Kenya’s top legacy television stations, mainstream television stations are rethinking the content they offer viewers in order to compete favourably. In earlier years, rotas were commonly filled with foreign content that was relatively inexpensive to purchase; but with high-quality foreign content now easily available on streaming services, television stations are pivoting more towards sourcing locally produced content to provide audiences with something that international streamers and other competitors do not (Programme manager. Interview by authors, September 1, 2021). Television stations’ programming choices are no longer primarily dictated by the whims of TV executives or simple audience surveys as in the past, but by a greater need to be distinctive within a local—yet

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global—competitive landscape that has given audiences a vast array of new choices. A media trainer we interviewed points out that viewers also expect to “see themselves” in the content; through people who are like them or through issues that are relevant to them (Interview with media trainer, August 26, 2021). In addition, exposure to vast amounts of global content has raised their expectations in terms of quality, while the digital revolution has brought in new demands in terms of speed and convenience. In Kenya, news is the most watched television content, with 92% of people surveyed in a recent report saying they will have watched a news programme within the week (MCK, 2020, 10). But gone are the days of purely ‘appointment viewing’, when Kenyans would rush home to catch the day’s developments on the nine o’clock news; many now receive a steady stream of information from social media and other sources all day. Viewers will still tune in to verify or contextualise news they saw on another platform, but the central role of television as a primary news source has shifted significantly. Television news stations wishing to retain primacy in the new media landscape are making efforts to ensure their content does more than just inform. That content now needs to explain, investigate, contextualise, analyse and make a far greater contribution to the viewers’ understanding of the events being reported. Legacy media organisations are, therefore, increasingly building capacity as information curators as opposed to focusing on traditional forms of breaking news (Media Innovation Centre, 2021, iv). The need to curate is driving more interest in data and long-form journalism, exclusive investigations and documentary content that can help viewers better understand the bursts of information they pick up elsewhere. There are new entrants diversifying the content landscape by taking advantage of gaps that established news media do not cover, and the ease of digital production, to set up platforms that offer non-traditional journalism. Local content producers like Debunk Media and Africa Uncensored are exploring investigative and in-depth, engaging multimedia storytelling formats (Media Innovation Centre, 2021, 23).  Meanwhile, news media producers are shifting away from the mindset of selling space around their content to advertisers and replacing it with the mindset of selling that content directly to consumers (Awiti et al., 2020, 10).

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Data and the Emerging TV Newsroom Practices As news and other content producers in Kenya seek to better serve their audiences and sell to them directly, data is likely to play a prominent role in curating and programming choices. The fabled ‘gut feeling’ that news editors often rely on to pick lead stories will take a back-seat as media outlets begin to make data-driven decisions to select content and measure success. Many television organisations have already incorporated digital platforms in gathering feedback. Television journalists are now much more aware and responsive to viewers’ perspectives. One experienced news anchor commented thus: “Social media has challenged us to be more conscious and informed about the content we put out. Experts in certain areas can instantly correct or enhance a report, so we are forced to do more research and put out content that has more depth.” (News Anchor. Interview by authors, July 23, 2021).

It is probable that in the future, collection of data about consumers by Kenyan broadcasters will be embedded within their business practices and be at the centre of editorial decision-making and content production. TIFA (2019) notes that the current dynamic media environment calls for a new passive audience methodology where media consumption behavior is monitored using a smartphone, instead of the older data collection methods which rely on the respondent’s recall of media consumed. A comparison between passive and day-after recall methodologies showed respondents in Nairobi recorded an average of only 3.4 television stations per day, while passive monitoring through smartphones more accurately captured an average of 33 (TIFA, 2019, 43). Technology is therefore set to play a greater role in the way Kenyan television channels gather data about consumers to inform their programming decisions. Kenyan legacy television broadcasters are also making efforts to create access to their content beyond the traditional TV set. Confronted by audiences with busier lives, more options and shorter attention spans, local television stations are investing in ensuring that their content can also be found on the digital platforms their viewers are already using. As a result they have been integrating various digital media like social media platforms into their output, breaking down the barrier between traditional television content and online content. They also report what is happening

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on social media and utilise views from these platforms. Notably, ‘trending’ discussions on social media are often also led by content that has been seen on television. Ambala (2014) describes it as a dismantling of the traditional vertical relationship between broadcasters and viewers. However, some broadcasters, have gone beyond merely making use of existing digital platforms, and have built their own. While Royal Media Services’ Viusasa is an app-based offering available exclusively on mobile devices and thus a highly specific proposition in technological terms, the biggest drivers of its uptake among viewers to date have been factors related to content, rather than platform or format. The availability of content in local languages is one of the major draws, as is the ‘stickiness’ of long-running popular shows first watched on television and then followed on the app when made available. This development has also seen viewers become ever more powerful in shaping the relationships between the audience and media organisations. A media executive from RMS observed that viewers are ‘loyal to the content, not the app, and they will end their subscription to the app if a particular programme they were following stops showing there’ (Media Executive. Interview by authors, August 10, 2021). The loyalty of the audience to the content more than the platform could signify a future where the focus for Kenyan television broadcasters is on producing content that is ‘sticky’ enough to be platform agnostic and that viewers are able to find wherever they may prefer it. Our interviews however also revealed that even though viewers will follow some of the same content on different platforms, there are exceptions. Traditional television broadcasters in Kenya have made a number of attempts to tap into the popularity and reach of social media stars by giving them their own TV shows, but so far, few—if any—have been able to replicate their social media success on mainstream television. There was an assumption that the audience these bloggers and Youtubers commanded would simply follow them to the television medium. However, the digital audience is quite complex. A senior programme manager noted that “Those audiences are used to watching whatever kind of content they want, when they want, on whatever platform they like, and we were trying to force them into appointment viewing. Also, there are some things you can’t easily do on TV, like talk explicitly about sex or swear, and those editorial guidelines water down the original content these stars were producing, thus the

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creators didn’t have as many followers when they moved to TV.” (Senior Programme Manager. Interview by authors, September 1, 2021).

Conversely, plenty of Kenyan content that originated from television and extended into the digital space has performed much better. This may be partly because there has been a longer history of moving things from traditional television to online platforms, and as such, the lesson has already been learned that content shared on internet platforms should be modified to suit the space. Using digital assets simply as a ‘graveyard’ for content that has already aired on television is highly ineffective. Collectively, the trends appear to point to the importance of tailoring different types of content to different methods of consumption enabled by new technological environments. In the next section, we discuss the evolution of the television audience in Kenya and how it is shaping the industry’s future.

The Changing Audience As content providers and commercial entities, television stations are modelled on attracting and retaining audiences (McQuail, 2010). Audience surveys typically identify the most popular television programmes and segment viewership in terms of location, gender, education and age (MCK, 2020). While such categorisations give insight into the traditional television viewership, the technology-driven disruptions discussed earlier in this chapter, most notably the growth of social media use in Kenya, have given rise to a more complex and fluid audience milieu that effectively makes it problematic to place audiences into neat boxes. With social media as a platform and behaviour-influencer (Wamuyu, 2020), today’s television audiences have more choice and control on what to watch, how to watch it, when to watch it and how to react or give feedback. They can also seamlessly shift to being content (co-)creators or citizen journalists, attracting their own audiences. Viewing habits that in some parts of Kenya were communal and on appointed times with large numbers of people gathering to watch a single television set, are also increasingly becoming more individualised with the smartphone at the centre of this shift. The expansion of the television space, discussed in previous sections, has led to an evolution of audiences that mainstream Kenyan television channels are struggling to understand (Newsroom Manager. Interview by

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authors, July 30, 2021). It is an audience that is “more proactive and conscious about what they want” (Media Strategist. Interview by authors, August 3, 2021). In addition to individualised feedback, reaction to media content can come from organised groups or collectively identifiable voices on WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter—most notably, Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) as Mwita (2021) points out. No longer is it viable to have, as Ambala (2014) cites, the domineering stance of the ‘monologue broadcaster’ providing news and other content in a know-it-all manner to the largely passive appreciative viewer—with token feedback or interactive options like call-ins, letters or mobile phone text messages. This changing audience behaviour, in the broader context, is also consequential in challenging the privilege of the political and economic elite using broadcasting to control discourse and impose views that stifle the voices of the majority (Ambala, 2014; King’ara, 2014). In Kenya, argues a digital media strategist, “we have different demographics that consume TV content differently. And it is not just about the youth because even older people adapt to new ways of consuming content. There are loyal viewers who will, for example, wait for 9pm to watch news but there are others who will move to other things, maybe Netflix, at 9pm and watch the news later on YouTube. Media houses are challenged to meet the demands of all these audiences and I think in many ways they were not prepared for it but now have to adapt to respond to these demands. Retaining the loyal audiences while attracting this more fickle unreliable audience is the balance that should be struck.” (Media Strategist. Interview by authors, August 3, 2021). As noted earlier, the mainstream television channels have enhanced their online presence. The social media platforms of the major television stations are now some of the most followed online accounts in Kenya, attracting millions of people (Tifa, 2019; Wamuyu, 2020). The platforms are used for live broadcasts, repurposed content or full-length news bulletins, and to promote content that is available on traditional television channels to attract the attention of digital audiences, as well as get instant feedback and enhance audience engagement (Senior Newsroom Manager. Interview by authors, July 30, 2021). To attract the attention of an increasingly demanding and fragmented audience, local legacy television stations have to contend with the emerging social media channels—particularly on YouTube, Pay TV platforms, international broadcasters and streaming services. There has been an exponential growth of YouTube TV channels in Kenya in recent years

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(Tifa, 2019; Wamuyu, 2020. Although WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are more popular than YouTube (MCK, 2020), Wamuyu (2020) notes an upward trajectory in the use of the video-sharing platform. YouTube has become central to legacy television stations’ strategies to recruit new audiences, and retain existing ones by giving them more viewing options and control, and bringing back those viewers they had lost (Digital Producer. Interview by authors, August 15, 2021). The Google-owned platform has also been targeting local content creators, including providing funding to encourage the uptake of initiatives like YouTube Shorts for brief clips of up to 60 seconds. In these platforms, audiences can, for example, pause, replay, save and re-watch content at their convenience. Faced with such a fluid, sophisticated and demanding audience and competition for eyeballs, the adoption strategies for mainstream channels now revolve around content across various platforms, as discussed in the previous section. Increasingly, audiences will, as Ambala (2014) argues, want more control—including organising and reorganissing content, to fit their personal preferences. Importantly though, making assumptions about audience behaviour, especially on demographics, without proper market research would be problematic (Interview with media executive, August 10, 2021). He gives the example of Viusasa, the VoD platform, whose audience is largely rural and across all age groups, underscoring the point that adaptation to new platforms is not restricted to younger urban audiences. Viusasa’s audience mirrors that of Citizen TV, a companion legacy television channel. The rural population that is noted to be consuming less television content than those in urban areas (MCK, 2020), is likely to be an important factor for television stations seeking to grow audiences in future. The 2019 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) census figures indicate a rural population of 68.9% compared to 31.1% urban (KNBS, 2019). Thus, attracting and retaining the digital-savvy fluid audiences described at the beginning of this section is not enough. How well the unreached or ignored audiences, mostly in rural Kenya, are included, notwithstanding indications of rapid urbanization, remains important. These challenges with audiences will inform the crafting of sustainable revenue models as discussed in the next section.

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The Revenue Challenge Possibly the knottiest issue facing the television broadcasters is the question of how long their current revenue models can survive. Advertising spend in Kenya is the largest in the region (PWC, 2018), but the impacts of digitization and increased competition have reduced profits across Kenya’s broadcasters (Bonuke, 2016) and exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020. Total spend in Kenya’s advertising industry in the first half of 2020, for instance, declined by 33% compared to the same period in the previous year (Ipsos, 2020a, 2020b). Globally, there are concerns among legacy media owners that the fact that television advertising has not yet gone through the same scale of disruption as newspapers is only a matter of time. Some see it as an inevitability, as audiences switch from privileged tradition distribution channels to digital (WAN-­ IFRA, 2020). Kenyan broadcasters have responded to falling advertising revenues with operating actions or strategic actions, and in many cases, both. Operating actions for turnaround focus on short-run cost reduction actions to increase operational efficiency such as asset and employee reduction (Ndofor et al., 2013). Strategic actions on the other hand focus on changing a firm’s product markets, or how it competes within those product markets (Barker & Duhaime, 1997). Broadcasters who run small, independent operations have focused on cost-cutting as a way to weather the storm, abbreviating their organisational structures to introduce more multitasking, multiskilling and agility within their staff (Interview with senior newsroom manager, July 30, 2021). Operating actions will likely dominate the response of linear broadcasters to revenue challenges in the short term, but in the longer term, those who have not invested in strategic actions may find it difficult to survive. Some conventional broadcasters are already taking on strategic actions and making attempts to build other revenue models, such as VoD subscription-­ based platforms. They are also diversifying their revenue streams and exploring non-media business ventures like courier services, gaming and advertising agencies, while experimenting with ‘coopetition’—that is, cooperating on capital investments in infrastructure while competing on content production and delivery at the same time (Media Innovation Centre, 2021, iv).

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Partnerships are emerging as a key feature of Kenya’s television future. Viusasa, which as mentioned earlier is a VoD service owned by the same company as Citizen TV, often enters into agreements with mobile operator Safaricom to offer ‘data passes’ that allow viewers to access episodes of their popular soaps for a fee, some of them in advance of airing on traditional television. International broadcaster BBC has also entered into partnerships with local stations to provide content at a subsidised fee and sometimes offer training opportunities, while gaining access to local viewers who do not ordinarily access BBC programmes via pay TV. Due to the limited reach of pay TV in Kenya, the legacy free-to-air channels still command the widest reach. While legacy television broadcasters struggle to turn their big ships around, there are nimbler, agile players entering the video content space, enabled by digitalisation, and playing a role in redefining and democratising Kenya’s television future. The country’s media industry has thus far been dominated by six major media groups, which control more than 95 per cent of both the audience and advertising market (Media Innovation Centre, 2021, 1). Smaller companies and individuals are now breaking TV out of its box—making their content accessible to viewers through platform media and mobile phones. One of Kenya’s most popular comedians known as ‘Njugush’, rose to fame by posting short sketch comedies on social media, and has now diversified by partnering with a web developer to set up his own web and mobile platforms that operate on a pay-per-view model. There are much larger players entering the space too. As previously noted, Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest mobile telecommunication provider, launched the digital platform Baze in May 2021. Baze is a subscription-­ based, mobile-first VoD service that offers a selection of local and regional short form videos in various entertainment genres. The content is sourced from independent creators who go through a vetting process to upload their videos to the platform in order to monetise them. Kenya’s video content industry is set to become even more competitive as other telecom or technology companies may follow Safaricom’s example. Such companies already have a large potential viewing audience in the form of subscribers. According to a telecoms and internet technology expert, these companies have experienced big declines in revenue from voice services because voice calls are now made through apps like WhatsApp (Interview with telecoms and internet technology expert, August 20, 2021). Internet

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data is now the biggest revenue earner, and with most data use attributed to video downloads, telecom companies see an opportunity in promoting higher video consumption using their own platforms (ibid.). Another factor that will determine who succeeds in the race to build a profitable subscription model for Kenyan television is scale. For a subscription model to work, broadcasters need scale of audience, and subsequent engagement. The goal is to reach the point at which operating leverage begins to rise—that moment in a company’s arc of digital growth beyond which investment and other costs no longer need to rise at the same pace as revenue, and the fundamental profitability of the business starts to increase (WAN-IFRA, 2020). Government regulation of the sector is also likely to play a significant role in determining what shape revenue models in Kenya’s television industry take in the future. In 2014, the government passed a broadcasting regulation requiring at least 40% local content in television and radio broadcasts. This policy direction expanded the markets for local film, plays and music by mandating the participation of Kenyan owners, shareholders, actors, producers, languages and locations (UNESCO, 2016). In May 2021, the Communications Authority of Kenya, which is responsible for administering the code, announced a review of the regulation with ‘service-­ specific’ guidelines proposed in recognition of the changing nature of broadcasting models (CA, 2021). Such requirements could build capacity and help to protect local broadcasters from being overtaken by foreign media companies targeting the Kenyan audience. The regulatory and policy environment could thus have future impact on the ability of Kenyan broadcasters to capture local audiences and achieve the scale necessary for profitability in an increasingly fragmented market. Despite the challenges, linear television in Kenya occupies a unique space, one that can be leveraged to innovate sustainable revenue models for the future. Even with low penetration due to national infrastructure challenges, and the rise of social media as an information source, television still leads as the main source of trusted news; a fact that may be attributable to communal viewing habits, where one TV serves numerous people at a local hangout or at home in both urban and rural areas (MCK, 2020, 114), though this is being challenged by the smart phone. Video formats are highly variable, and variably valuable as a result. A TV set is large and immobile and often viewed socially; a smartphone is portable but small and viewed privately (Deloitte, 2021). With this variance in format and experience, the Kenya television industry of the future

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has the capacity to accommodate both, and while viewership for conventional television will likely continue to change and even reduce, this will be a re-casting of its role rather than its obliteration. Linear and live television still offer advertisers a type of viewer attention that other video formats do not. But Kenyan broadcasters will have to innovate ways to increase value by using audience data to make advertising more specific and targeted. They will also need to seek additional avenues of monetisation such as their own VoD subscription platforms, or partnerships and agreements with telecom companies and pay-TV providers.

Conclusion Television in Kenya is in transition, confronted by the disruptive force of rapid technological transformation over the last decade. As mobile and internet access is projected to keep growing, the implication is that more people will be consuming content on mobile devices interspersed with streaming on smart or digital television sets. These developments will soon reconfigure Kenya’s television landscape, with implications on its continued relevance and commercial viability. Kenyan audiences are increasingly digitally savvy and are driving demand for a wide variety of both foreign and local content. As discussed in this chapter, based on current trends, Kenya’s television landscape will increasingly feature more agile players reaping the digital dividend. The mainstream television channels will continue playing an important role in Kenya’s media ecosystem, but to survive an uncertain future, they must adapt their content strategies and revenue models to keep pace with the technological disruptions.

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Obuya, J. (2021). Media Accountability in Africa: A Study of Policies and Practices at Two Newsrooms in Kenya. Communication, Cultural, Journalism and Media Studies, February, 42–59. Owen, B. (1999). The Internet Challenge to Television. Harvard University Press. PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. (PWC). (2018). Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2018-2022. An In-Depth Analysis of the Trends Shaping the Entertainment and Media Industry in South Africa. PWC. TIFA. (2019). Kenya Media Landscape Report. TIFA.  Retrieved November 11, 2021, from http://www.tifaresearch.com/wp-­content/uploads/2019/07/ M e d i a -­L a n d s c a p e -­i n -­K e n y a -­2 0 1 9 -­R e p o r t -­R e e l f o r g e -­a n d -­ TIFA-­10.07.2019.pdf Tully, M. (2021). Everyday News Use and Misinformation in Kenya. Digital Journalism, 1(19), 1–9. UNESCO. (2016). Kenya 2016 Report. UNESCO.  Retrieved September 10, 2021, from https://en.unesco.org/creativity/monitoring-­reporting/periodic­reports/available-­reports-­20 Wamuyu, P. K. (2020). The Kenyan Social Media Landscape: Trends and Emerging Narratives, 2020. SIMElab. https://www.usiu.ac.ke/assets/file/SIMElab_ The_Kenyan_Social_Media_Landscape_report.pdf Wilding, D., Fray, P., Molitorisz, S., & McKewon, E. (2018). The Impact of Digital Platforms on News and Journalistic Content. Vol. 1. Centre for Media Transition. World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers  - WAN-IFRA. (2020). Special Edition of Innovation in News Media World Report (pp. 13–21). World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.

CHAPTER 5

Television’s Uncertain and Fragmented Future: Battling the Digital Revolution in Uganda Ivan Okuda

Introduction Technological advancements in this digital age are redefining the media and information ecosystems. For developing nations like Uganda, the impact is as disruptive as it is transformational, largely because many such countries tend to be consumers and recipients of technologies mainly from the West (and Asia). However, most developing countries have also been very good at appropriating such technologies, making them work for local contexts. These contexts though varied tend to revolve around political, economic and cultural practices and infrastructures. In Uganda, as elsewhere, it is these factors that are shaping the future of TV in the country. This chapter reflects on some of these factors with a view to providing insights into the prospects of television in the country. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the history of television in Uganda. It then examines the stalled ‘digital revolution’ in the country, followed by an analysis of how the country’s economic situation shapes media consumption habits and patterns. We I. Okuda (*) Vox Populi, Kampala, Uganda © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_5

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conclude the chapter with a brief reflection on some of the issues raised in the overall discussion.

Background and Context Uganda attained independence from Britain on October 9, 1962, after 68  years of colonial rule. Between 1962 and 2021, the country, with a population of approximately 45 million, has undergone numerous socio-­ political and economic changes. There was, for the most part of the period between 1971–2005, political instability or unrest in one part of the country or the other. Until about the early 1990s, the Ugandan economy was largely under the control of the state. Liberalisation, driven by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as part of economic reforms to re-ignite the economy, unlocked opportunities for growth. The results of that process speak for themselves today. Prior to the liberalisation, particularly of the media sector, the country had one TV station and one radio station. Four decades later, the media industry has expanded exponentially. Before the liberalization of the media sector, TV ownership was a marker of class privilege. As Charles Hamya, former Managing Director of Multi-Choice Uganda Ltd. reminisced in a newspaper article, “Having a television set always elevated you within the community. Those without [a television set] treated you and your family with respect, particularly when invited to watch during the evenings.” (Hamya, 2017, 1). Hamya notes that “the television experience before the digital revolution took off was limited. Some may even suggest bland and tame; not only due to the format in black and white, but also because of the variety of programmes being broadcast. For decades, switching channels was unheard of, for the simple reason that there was only one available. Turning on the television was an honour only bestowed to the men of the house, as was fumbling with the antennae to get a good picture.” (Hamya, 2017, 1). Audiences are now treated to a buffet of television sets with different sizes, pictures, audio, output quality and functionality. The country is now a supermarket for multiple brands with later brands like LCD, LED, Plasma and the more advanced and costly OLED, replacing the ‘old school’ Cathode Ray Tube. The roots of broadcast media in Uganda are traceable to the year 1952 when the British colonial administration started radio broadcasting services and in 1963 expanded to television broadcasting. The state remained the sole actor in that space up to the 1990s with Uganda Television (UTV), now called Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), being the sole TV station in the country. In the 1990s, the first private TV station,

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Sanyu TV, opened its doors though it folded shortly after. At the start of the 2000s, Wavah Broadcasting Television (WBS) entered the market and set the pace and stage for private television broadcasting in Uganda. It significantly ate into UTV’s market. Soon after, noticing the potential of television business in the now fast-growing economy, Lighthouse Television (LTV), EATV and Top TV were established. A few years later, Nation Media Group, one of the biggest media conglomerates in Africa, through NTV (Nation TV), entered the Ugandan market, effectively killing off some local competition such as WBS.  It would later face competition from NBS (Next Media Services) and now, the two remain the giants for the English-speaking audience while Bukedde TV of New Vision Printing and Publishing Company Limited (Vision Group) where the government of Uganda has majority shareholding, dominates the market among viewers who prefer the Luganda language. Today, the delivery of Free-To-Air (FTA) channels is mainly via the government-owned SIGNET UG Ltd. By the end of December 2020, 39 FTAs were carried on the SIGNET platform. On the other hand, the Pay-TV market in Uganda is served by a combination of satellite, cable and digital terrestrial networks, with seven licensed content aggregators (UCC, 2020, 31). Over and above traditional DTT and DTH pay TV channels, also of emerging prominence in the Pay TV space is the nascent role of Video-on-Demand and online streaming services (UCC, 2020, 32). Although players like Netflix are expanding their footprint in Africa taking advantage of proliferation of fixed and mobile internet services, they are only just establishing in the Ugandan market. In its review of the industry performance, trends and key developments for the quarter starting October to December 2020, the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) put the active pay TV subscriptions at 1,686,269. Average TV viewership is approximately 4.4–4.5  million (Balikuddembe, 2020, 2). The number of households that own TV sets slightly increased to 19.2% in 2019/20 from 17.4% in 2016/17, whereas the households that owned mobile phones slightly declined to 73.8% in 2019/20 compared to 74.4% in 2016/2017 and less than 2% owned a computer in 2019/20 (UBOS, 2020, 57). These statistics will become important in the later parts of this chapter. The following are the satellite television service providers in Uganda: MutiChoice Uganda (DStV), Star DTV Uganda (Star Times), Pearl Digital TV, Kampala SITI Cable, Smart TV, Time Watch Cable, Zuku TV, GoTV.  The television stations currently operating in Uganda include:

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UBC (state-owned), NBS TV, BBS, Terefayina, Channel TV, LTV-­ Lighthouse TV/TBN Uganda, Bukedde TV (Bukedde 1 and Bukedde 2), Top TV, Tagy TV, Channel 44, Urban TV, NTV (Nation TV), ABS Television, Baba TV (Lusoga language), TV West (Runyankole language), Dream TV, Delta TV, STV, Regional TVs, East African Television, KBC— Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, TBC—Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation, Citizen TV, Channel 10, TV Africa. The growth of television in Uganda and its prospects can only be understood within the context of developments within the broader media ecosystem. This chapter thus pays attention to three key issues. First, the technological advancements that either enable or constrain the operations of the TV sector in Uganda. Second, the broader economic trajectory of Uganda and its impact on the TV sector and media in general, and third, Uganda’s demographics and its implications for the future of the TV in the country. This line of inquiry is critical because it feeds into such questions as sustainability and viability, for instance, of commercial advertising as the business model that anchors TV and indeed, legacy media as a whole. In effect, we ask the question, how will the changing demographics and different audience consumption patterns affect the industry? As technology changes, so do consumer behaviour. Will the TV industry in Uganda keep up with the pace of these technology-induced changes in consumer behaviour? If yes, how and at what cost? What are the enablers and constraints of that process?

Television and the Stalled Digital ‘Revolution’ The future of TV in Uganda can be looked at through the lens of the technological transition currently taking place globally. The old is giving way to the new but the old is not dying, even as the new becomes dominant. In effect, in as much as TV belongs to the traditional media realm (newspaper, radio, TV, magazine, etc), it has become an important player in the new media space in more ways than say, the newspaper or even radio. Giacomo Summa argues that, “it is now obvious that television has been completely revolutionized by the internet. With the continuous convergence of television and web, it nowadays seems impossible to venture a univocal definition for television,” (Giacomo, 2011, 52). Nicholas Negroponte (chairman emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab) once remarked that it is important, “to stop thinking of television as television” because it matters not where one

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watches TV anymore, “whether it is on a black box, on a computer screen or even on a mobile phone. It still is television,” (Giacomo, 2011, 52). Effectively, our experience of television is no longer confined to the black box or the remote-controlled flat screen on a stand or affixed to a wall in the living room. For instance, with the diffusion of the web and of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, used in concert with television, “the TV experience has become much more interactive and it is now impossible not to acknowledge that television has also become a driving force for social interaction. Furthermore, the parallel diffusion of internet videos and user generated content, fostered by YouTube in particular, has provided the population with a different approach to media and television in particular: consumers have also become producers” (Giacomo, 2011, 6). With the advent of YouTube, Giacomo notes, “the content watched might be more important than the device on which it is watched to determine whether one is watching TV.  This consideration is particularly important since the web seems to have increasingly become the place where viewers get their content and since a whole new range of devices is increasingly used to consume content, from tablets such as the iPad to mobile phones, which are quickly becoming one of the main tools that people use to watch their favorite videos and shows,” (Giacomo, 2011, 53). Therefore, alive to these changing contours of television, our starting point on the prospects for TV in Africa should be to look at picture painted by the internet penetration statistics, especially considering how the internet has had a ‘revolutionising’ impact on communication more broadly and television in particular. Approximately 19.2% of Ugandan households own a TV set, 31.7% own a radio while 2% own a computer and 73.8% own a phone (UBOS, 2020: 57). In terms of internet penetration, at the end of December 2020, the number of active internet subscriptions in Uganda had grown to 21.4 million translating into an internet access reach of more than one active connection for every two Ugandans (UCC, 2020, 15). According to UBOS, 83% of Ugandans online use the internet for social networking, 20% for academic work, 16% for business, 39% for internet-based telephoning, 9.6% for health-related information, 2.5% for online gaming, 3% for betting and 2.7% for shopping (UBOS, 2020, 59). The 2020 Affordability Report that studied the internet affordability barrier and how to overcome it, found that Uganda’s data costs are higher than the Africa average, with 1  GB of data costing up to 8.07% of an

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average Ugandan’s monthly income compared to Sub-Saharan Africa’s average of 3.1% (Alliance for Affordable Internet, 2020). This fact is conceded by the National Information Technology Authority-Uganda (NITA-U) which in its National Technology Information Survey report admits that the cost of internet access in Uganda remains higher than in most countries in the region, partly because of Uganda’s landlocked nature that means it does not have direct access to marine fibre. Whereas the cost of internet bandwidth has been progressively falling and rising competition among telecom companies pushes prices down, over the years, “the high data prices force a great number of Ugandans not to use the internet and associated services,” (NITA-U, 2018, 59). The issue of cost remains a major stumbling block to meaningfully deploying ICT in socio-economic development. Using global development indices, NITA-U concedes that Uganda ranks low in ICT access and use, with affordability being among the biggest hindrances. One study conducted in 2014 found that the poor standing on affordability resulted from the increasing government charges on mobile services including excise duty on airtime, phone calls and money transfers, as well as withholding tax on mobile money transfer charges (NITA-U, 2018, 59). These factors will significantly impact on the growth of internet as a go-to source of consumption for television in Uganda. A discussion of enablers and constraints in respect of the TV industry in Uganda can only be enriched by analysis of the role and place of internet considering that it plays a pivotal role in the digital ‘revolution’. In essence, because media consumption is increasingly defined by and happening in the internet space, such aspects as internet access, penetration, speed and quality on the one hand and the factors that enable consumers access internet or constrain them from accessing it, become central. Audience tastes and preferences, I argue, are also determined, in more ways than one, by these factors. That is, of course, tied to the obtaining material conditions on ground, as the discussion on the economic trajectory of Uganda will later demonstrate. Industry players such as Conrad Nkutu, former Managing Director of Uganda’s Monitor Publications Limited among other media executive roles in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania argue that “the urban areas will consolidate on digital” with Uganda expected to roll out 3G and 4G across all urban areas (Conrad Nkutu. Interview by author. September 27, 2021). This argument speaks to the rural-urban divide and how income levels determine and will continue to determine internet consumption and

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access dynamics. This reflects how varied Uganda’s TV audiences and how this shapes consumption patterns and habits. There is, one may argue, a class divide at play. In the medium to long term, industry experts like Nkutu note, the content accessible to and consumed by those in rural areas in Uganda will be at variance with what is consumed by those in the urban areas. Note however that even the urban areas are further divided along income and literacy levels. The drop in data prices, Nkutu projects, will depend on global dynamics around the sea cable. Domestically, the telecom market is a duopoly (dominated by MTN and Airtel) as the other telecoms have either failed to take off or closed shop so this duopoly will, he predicted, “sustain the prices of data in Uganda upwards. Data will not reduce but competition around speed of internet will increase.” (Conrad Nkutu. Interview by author, September 27, 2021). With content becoming the definitive experience of what TV is, these constraints to access to content along the rural-urban as well as income level divide, will be an interesting space to watch in the years to come. To each class their own. He forecasts that the future of digital in terms of television, is low-cost mass subscription and only digital can deliver on micro-targeting because through geo-location of subscribers, an advertiser can tell narrow down on viewer profiles such as sex, age, location and preferences. All this, however, will depend on data costs. Kin Kariisa who owns Next Media Services (NBS TV), one of the two leading TV stations in Uganda, agrees with the projection of digital-based content as the emerging means of consumption of television in Uganda. He contends that TV will grow in digital terms and the platform will change from a television set to a phone or other mobile gadgets. He argues that business models for TV operations will change, suggesting that most broadcasters are likely to adopt subscription models where “a viewer pays DSTV or Star Times to watch NBS TV or NTV so we have to devise means of getting people to pay to watch our content.”(Kin Kariisa. Interview by author, October 22, 2021). He projects that in the next 5–10 years, the primary screen will be the mobile phone. He is more optimistic than Nkutu that internet will continue to become affordable as government of Uganda lays the fibre optic cable and competition among telecom companies forces a fall in data prices.

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The ‘Economic Question’ and Uganda’s TV Future However, the discussion on data prices, be it by civil society organisations or government institutions or even business leaders in the industry, is loudly silent about disposable incomes of Ugandans. It is arguable that one can use the rural, peri-urban and urban population demographics as units of analysis on the question of affordability of the internet in preparation of an internet-revolutionized TV era. This takes us to the second point which is to examine the broader economic trajectory of Uganda and its likely impact on the future of television in the country. There are indicators through which we can measure disposable incomes at present and the likely levels in the foreseeable future. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) uses real-life indices such as: the major type of roof, wall, floor, water source, fuel used for lighting and cooking, access to grid electricity and main sources of livelihood to measure economic progress. Beyond projections of economic growth and rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), these indices are closer to the lived experiences of the everyday Ugandan and give a clearer sense of disposable incomes that would inform any investor’s decision-making matrix if they so desired to venture into the TV industry. UBOS starts by asking the question, ‘how many people are poor or how bad is the poverty problem in Uganda?’ and uses the period 1999–2020 to draw conclusions. From poverty levels of 33.8% in 1999, poverty has progressively been falling in Uganda to an estimated 20.3% in 2020. This does not, in and of itself, give the most accurate picture of disposable income. The GDP per Capita, obtained by dividing the country’s GDP, adjusted by inflation, by the total population, was last recorded at 958.19 US dollars in 2020 (Trending Economics, 2020). It had averaged 621.67 USD from 1982 until 2020, reaching an all-time high of 962.54 USD in 2019 and a record low of 360.86 USD in 1986. The GDP per capita in Uganda was expected to reach 935.00 USD by the end of 2021, according to global macro models and analysts’ expectations. In the long-term, the Uganda GDP per capita is projected to trend around 970.00 USD in 2022, according to econometric models (Trending Economics, 2020, 3). Uganda’s Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC) estimates that there are about 8.3  million Ugandans (22% of the population) in the middle-­class excluding the floating middle-class (FMC), defined as “those susceptible to becoming poor in case of negative economic shocks,”

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(Jjingo, 2021, 1). Whether this middle-class can deliver national aspirations of attaining middle-income status by 2040 as Uganda advances into the third National Development Plan period (2020–2025) remains to be seen. Middle-class connotes a signified secure and aspirational lifestyle and, “Uganda’s middle-class comprises of people whose per capita daily consumption expenditure is between $2–$20 (Shs 7300–Shs 73,000) in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms” (Jjingo, 2021, 1). The middle-class is, however, not homogeneous. It can be classified into three unique categories: the FMC who lie between the poor and lower middle-class and is, “vulnerable and highly unstable and can quickly descend into poverty in the event of economic and other shocks. The per capita consumption level for FMC is $2–$4 (Shs 7300–Shs 14,600) per day—just above the developing world’s poverty threshold of $2 (Shs 7300) per day” (Jjingo, 2021, 1). The second classification is the Lower Middle-Class (LMC) who are composed of Ugandans with daily per capita consumption of $4–$10 (Shs 14,600–Shs 36,500). Unlike the floating middle-class, this category lives above the subsistence level and can save and consume non-essential goods. The third segment is the Upper Middle-­ Class (UMC) which has households whose characteristics are closer to affluent households (Jjingo, 2021, 1). The Upper Middle-Class’ daily per capita consumption is between $10–$20 (Shs 36,500–Shs 73,000). Out of the country’s total population in 2016/2017, “about 8.3 million Ugandans (22 percent) belong to the middle-class (without a floating category), and if those in the floating category are included (about 13 million), the size of the middle-class rises to 21.3 million, representing close to 57% of the population”. However. “the FMC alone represents 34.8 % of the total population in Uganda” (ibid). According to statistics from the Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) 2016/2017, out of the 21.3 million Ugandans in the middle-­ class, the share of the Floating Class, Lower Middle Class, and Upper Middle Class is 61 percent, 33 percent, and 6 percent respectively, which means the floating class—is the largest category (Jjingo, 2021, 2). In effect, an investor forecasting the future of industry such as TV which will be dependent on how much disposable income there is for such services as internet and associated data costs would be interested in the 6% of the population. As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, the 61% (Floating Middle-Class) and 33% (Lower Middle-Class) are vulnerable and are one medical bill away from falling back to poverty.

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This research by the Economic Policy Research Center is in tandem with findings by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics on the population characteristics in Uganda. For instance, in urban areas, only 6.4% of the population have access to health insurance while in rural areas the number is 2%. 68% of the population derives its livelihood from agriculture, forestry and fisheries. On the main fuel used for cooking, overall, seven in every ten households in 2019/20 used firewood for cooking while use of electricity was at a national average of 18.9% in the same period and solar power at 38% (UBOS, 2020, 45). To this we can add the aspect of the rural-urban population divide. Uganda’s rural population for 2020 was 34,326,791, a 2.51% increase from 2019 while the urban population was 11,414,209, a 5.84% increase from 2019 (Macro Trends, 2020, 1). Uganda is, from the statistics, analysed between 1960–2020, fast urbanising. There is, however, a little devil in the detail and that is the share of contribution of the country’s over 146 districts (local government administrative units) to the national GDP. In 2017, USAID estimated district contribution to GDP and found that the distribution of GDP per capita in Uganda is heavily skewed. Only 14 districts had GDP per capita values above the population-weighted national average ($580) and 102 were below the average. This equated to roughly four in five people (or 29 million) living in districts with GDP per capita estimates below the national average. Even more, “the top 19 district economies in Uganda make up 75% of the total GDP of Uganda, leaving the remaining 25% of the national economy coming from 97 districts. GDP is heavily concentrated in Central Uganda. Kampala (22.5%), Wakiso (20.8%), and Mukono (5.3%) account for nearly half of Uganda’s total GDP (20.8 billion US$ in 2014), while comprising only about 10% of Uganda’s population. Kampala and the South Central region account for an outsized proportion of Uganda’s GDP relative to its population size, meaning that it is a significantly more productive region in Uganda. Kampala is roughly 5% of Uganda’s population, but it generates 22.5% of its GDP; the South Central region comprises 11.4% of Uganda’s population and produces 27.5% of the country’s GDP. Of the ten largest district economies, seven are in Central Uganda.” (USAID, 2017, 3). These are important pointers to the future of TV because they speak to the factors that will constrain and enable effective demand for and access to internet and data as well as the ‘new television’ gadgets such as phones and other devices with functions suited for TV. Enabling and constraining factors already explain why in 2020, only 19.2% of the population had

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television sets (UBOS, 2020, 57). Besides low disposable incomes, as demonstrated above in the breakdown of the middle class and the poverty levels, access to electricity remains a challenge. Given the current pace of the rural electrification programme by the government, this is unlikely to change in the next decade. The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) was established as a semi-autonomous agency by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development in 2001 to operationalise government’s rural electrification function under a public-private partnership. REA is mandated to facilitate the government’s goal of achieving a rural electrification rate of at least 22% by the year 2022 from 1% at the beginning of the decade as indicated in REA’s Strategic Plan (2013–2022) (Devex, 2021, 1). According to USAID, “Uganda has one of the lowest electrification rates in the world, so bringing electricity to more than 40 million Ugandans is a critical national and regional objective. Despite significant efforts over the last 20 years, the rate has remained low—around 24%. Although power is available in Uganda, many communities, homes, and businesses do not have access to electricity due to expensive grid connection fees, including high house wiring costs.” (USAID, 2021, 1). Considering that in the last two decades the country has not yet achieved over 50% electrification rate, it would be overly optimistic, in light of available evidence, to imagine that in the next decade or so, half of rural homes will have gained access to affordable electricity. In an interview with this author, Joseph Beyanga, a seasoned broadcaster in Uganda, argued that the viability of TV in Uganda and its prospects, is foreseeable from the inactive versus active decoders today. Beyanga argues that, “because the current regime gives distributors mandate to scramble any channel they want other than UBC (government TV channel), effectively there is no free-to-air TV in Uganda. What we have is Pay TV.  The number of Ugandans who can afford monthly subscriptions reduces as disposable incomes lessen. If we had free-to-air TV as envisaged under digital migration, the number of TV viewers would be higher but people have to choose between a meal, school fees, medical bills and Pay TV subscription.” (Beyanga, 2021). For the average Ugandan household, “as long as such things as power (electricity) are still inaccessible, income levels don’t radically rise, TV will remain a luxury for most Ugandans. Also remember that the majority of the TV audience are people aged 25–35 years who, on account of low wages in the private and public sector and unemployment, have low purchasing power but are the ones most impressed by TV adverts and targeted by advertisers.” (Beyanga, 2021).

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Nkutu observes that for over 25–30 years, print media was a monopoly in the information space and was profitable before radio ‘cannibalised’ it, expanded the market and ate into print media’s profits. Then TV did the same to radio and now digital is cannibalising all of them but the shift to digital has been faster in TV than the other media. Whereas this presents an opportunity for TV to grow exponentially, that growth will be determined by the barriers discussed above (of access, affordability and effective demand) of the new TV experience. Nkutu does not expect, in terms of the strategic outlook, a drop in decoder connections basing on the growth figures in the last four years with the exception of the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. He notes however that “the typical Ugandan viewer will be switching platforms so however much time they spend online, they will remain dual consumers of social media and TV.” For the middle to upper income level earners, “we are likely to return to 9 pm news, switch from DsTV premium to compact but we shall not stop subscribing so there will be a degree of stability among that market segment though the eye-ball (the time spent on TV) will reduce as the phone becomes handier.” (Nkutu, 2021). While he argues that social media and digital consumption will be higher among the middle to upper middle class, he concedes that there will be barriers to such a shift among lower income earners. In addition, “3G internet will remain in the peri-urban areas, 4G in the urban areas while the lower income earners will still have phones that can at most give them access to Facebook, Twitter, a browser … unless China gives us cheaper smart phones”. Data will also remain a luxury for this income level segment as it copes with increasing cost of living. The TV industry needs this segment of the population’s income levels to increase for it to thrive. It is arguable that while television will not disappear in Uganda, in the medium to long term, factoring in the issues raised above, the industry may not grow profitably. There will be efforts to create digital offerings, but industry players do not expect major entrants because the market is already saturated yet still reliant on a diminishing business model of advertising as a source of revenue. Nkutu asserts that in Uganda, 80% of media revenue comes from the top 50–100 companies (beverages, banks, telecoms, insurance, general household item sellers and government). The country has few consumer brands, compared to Kenya, for instance, and the advertising market remains small, so media is still a low-margin

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business. This will also have a bearing on how much revenue is available for innovation that would turn around TV in Uganda and spur growth. The advertising revenue model will remain vulnerable to concentration risk and turbulence of the market as the Covid-19 pandemic has shown. At most, the TV market will expand at 2% per annum in the next 5–10 years (Nkutu, 2021). As the advertising model takes a beating, the smaller TV stations will either be bought off or collapse but the bigger players like NBS, NTV and Bukedde are likely to survive. Note that NBS is owned by the state while NTV and Bukedde are part of much bigger conglomerates. These big players in the industry will remain stratified on the lower-­ middle-­upper income divide and will also remain dominant in the urban and peri-urban areas and struggle to penetrate the rural population. Kariisa forecasts more niche channels and the splitting up of the big TV stations into such specialised multiple channels as sports, business, travel/tourism, and current affairs to suit different audience needs as consumption shifts online and especially younger audiences move away from the current model of a TV programme line-up (Kariisa, 2021).

Conclusion TV’s greatest strength or its ability to adapt and take advantage of the digital revolution in poorer nations like Uganda, can and may also be its own Achilles’ heel in the sense that where constraints of access and affordability to the digital world exist, its growth will be limited. This is evidenced by Uganda’s analogue to digital migration which improved the quality of output but cut off existing and potential TV consumers owing to low demand for Pay TV services. Indeed, had the country had full-­ blown Free-to-Air TV, the bulk of the population left behind due to low disposable income levels (hence inability to afford ‘luxuries’ like decoders and periodical subscription to be able to watch TV) would have joined the expanding market. The TV market is growing and will continue to grow in Uganda, but that growth will remain confined to a small social class. While radio was able to bring on board listeners across income, demographic, literacy levels and the rural-urban population segments, TV’s desire for and attempts at achieving mass market penetration will remain constrained by the factors discussed in the chapter. Although the middle-class is growing and poverty levels in the country are reducing, these are not a sufficient measure of the potential of TV in

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Uganda. As long as disposable incomes, wages, salaries and employment levels among the youth remain low and the majority of the rural population remain stuck in subsistence agriculture and low electricity connection rates, achieving mass market penetration by leveraging on the digital ‘revolution’ will remain a tall order.

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h t t p s : / / w w w. u b o s . o r g / w p -­c o n t e n t / u p l o a d s / p u b l i c a t i o n s / 0 6 _ 2021UNHS2019-­20_presentation.pdf Uganda Communications Commission. (2020). Market Performance Report 4Q 2020. UCC.  Retrieved August 27, 2021, from https://www.ucc.co.ug/wp-­ content/uploads/2021/04/UCC-­Q4-­2020-­Market-­Perfomance-­Report-­ compressed.pdf USAID. (2017). Estimating District GDP in Uganda. USAID.  Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://pardee.du.edu/sites/default/files/ Estimating%20District%20GDP%20in%20Uganda%20.pdf USAID. (2021). Uganda Electricity Supply Accelerator Increases Energy Access in Uganda. USAID.  Retrieved November 7, 2021, from https://www.usaid. gov/documents/uganda-­e lectricity-­s upply-­a ccelerator-­i ncreases-­e nergy-­ access-­uganda

PART II

The ‘New Scramble’ for Africa

CHAPTER 6

The BBC in Africa: Western Influencer, Soft Power Purveyor, or African Broadcaster? Peter Burdin

Introduction The BBC has 600 journalists dedicated to reporting sub-Saharan Africa; 300 are based in its East Africa Hub Bureau in Nairobi where they work across radio, television, and digital media output in English and several African languages (BBC, 2021a). Across in West Africa, a further 120 journalists work out of a new Lagos Bureau where they are part of a network of mainly African journalists providing a reporting presence across 46 countries in Africa with significant Bureaux in Abuja, Dakar, Johannesburg, and elsewhere (Ibid.). There are also bureaux in North Africa with a hub bureau in Cairo, but as they are part of the BBC Arabic Service and Middle East region rather than BBC Africa they fall outside the scope of this chapter. This plethora of bureaux is a far cry from the BBC’s first international broadcasting ambitions almost a century ago when the then Director-­ General John Reith launched what was called the BBC Empire Service in 1932. The Empire Service was aimed primarily at European ex-pats living

P. Burdin (*) PBA Media Ltd., Nairobi, Kenya © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_6

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overseas and even introduced its radio newsreels with a marching tune called ‘Imperial Echoes’. The transformation from the voice of the British Empire to the ‘African’ broadcaster it aspires to be today has been a journey of many years—and one that I’ve witnessed at close quarters during my own career in the BBC. I’ve been reporting on Africa for the BBC for more than 30 years and spent several years living in Nairobi and Johannesburg as the BBC’s Africa Bureaux Editor responsible for running reporters and correspondents across the continent. During that time, I’ve witnessed the tremendous changes in the BBC’s relationship with Africa, and have taken part in many of the internal battles which led to this transformation. In this chapter, I’ll examine this journey the BBC has taken in sub-­ Saharan Africa, how it’s been driven forward by changes to technology, addressing accusations of being negative and out of touch with its audience, and fears of losing that audience to rival broadcasters, and how it responded to those challenges to become a major media player in Africa. I’ll also look at the threats to the BBC in Africa as the Corporation as a whole, faces an uncertain future. The BBC has had a significant reputation on the continent for many years. In addition to World Service in English, it had significant audiences in its Swahili and Hausa Services which first came on stream in the 1950s. Both language services attracted millions of radio listeners and were soon joined by other services like BBC Afrique for audiences in the Francophonie in West Africa, the Somali Service, and later the Great Lakes Service. By the start of the twenty-first century, the combined audience for the BBC radio in Africa had risen to more than 80 million people (BBC, 2021a), but there was a sense that with the liberalisation of the airwaves in Africa other broadcasters with new ideas and new agendas were threatening to make the BBC less relevant. Television was becoming much more important and although the BBC had World TV, its ability to deliver African stories on television was limited, and there was little provision for the coming digital revolution. I remember the first time I entered the Nairobi Bureau in the early nineties. It wasn’t the smart purpose-built bureau for three hundred journalists that it is today—then it was just two tiny rooms in Chester House in downtown Nairobi where Reuters and other media also had their offices. The BBC had just two correspondents—one for domestic radio and one for the World Service. Both were posted to Kenya from the UK

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and they shared a local Kenyan fixer. It was primarily a radio operation, if any TV crews parachuted in, they had to work out of local hotels. Filing stories out of Kenya would often take many attempts. Direct phone lines to London were difficult so the BBC installed a system where you could phone a number in New York operated by the Bell Telephone Company who would then connect you to the Central Newsroom at BBC Headquarters in London. Sending news packages for television was even more cumbersome. It required booking a 10-min satellite feed for around $2000 with Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), the national broadcaster. Then you’d have to drive through the Nairobi traffic to physically take your tape to the KBC building, sign in with the guards on the gate, and then hope the engineers had lined up the satellite ready to “hit the bird”. If after all that you missed your 10-min satellite window you missed the bulletin and lost your $2000. With those logistical challenges it was inevitable that although radio was cheap and easier to file, there was a high benchmark for getting African stories on television. Every story had to be pitched to the Foreign Duty Editor sitting in London who would then decide if he wanted to spend $2000 of his daily budget on a story out of Africa. Inevitably the stories they’d spend money on tended to lean towards those big dramatic stories like wars and famines rather than the more textured features which would often give a more accurate portrayal of African life. In addition, reporters based on the continent also had to contend with Editors in London Newsrooms who often had stereotypical and outdated ideas about Africa and what an African story was. One story typifies this. I’d just returned to Africa as Bureaux Chief. One of my first challenges was to head up the BBC News’ preparations for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. One night I received the news that the Togo football team taking part in the African Cup of Nations in Angola had been caught up in a shoot-out at a border post in Cabinda. Immediately I was being asked by some London Editors to file stories on whether this meant the World Cup in South Africa would be unsafe and would have to be cancelled. I had to point out that Cabinda was almost 3000 km from South Africa, and asked whether anyone in the UK would consider cancelling a football tournament at Wembley if a bomb went off in Moscow which is about the same distance from London as Cabinda is to Johannesburg. It was clear that there was much work to be done if the Africa story was to be told properly. That work began almost 10 years ago when the BBC decided to set up a Creative Africa Board in 2012 with the brief to find

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new ways to report Africa and to rewrite the African editorial narrative. As a member of that Board, we were committed to finding better more relevant ways of telling the African story. The Head of the Creative Africa Board was the then Director of Global News Peter Horrocks. In a speech at Rhodes University, he noted that. For too long international news about Africa has been dominated by images of famine, war and poverty…many Africans would simply not recognise their continent as it is portrayed on international television screens, but now a new and rival African narrative is emerging, that of a booming Africa, a continent on the rise. (Horrocks, 2013, 131–2).

He challenged the BBC to reflect these new realities and do justice to the continent; to show Africa in all its many aspects: “We want our African reporters and producers to reveal to the world their continent, how they live and what it means to live in Africa in the 21st century. These are stories of Africa for Africans, told by Africans”. He warned that the BBC risked losing its relevance in Africa unless it began to “record the lives, experiences and views of African young people”. (131).

Although BBC World Service could already draw on a range of expertise, the BBC in Africa as a whole was primarily a radio operation presented from London and was getting left behind in how it reported the continent on television. Its US rival CNN was already producing Africa-­ specific programmes like Marketplace Africa and African Voices while the BBC only had World TV which featured fewer African stories. The result of the Creative Africa project was four new BBC programmes to take Africa to a global television and radio audience—Africa Business Report, Focus On Africa, its Swahili language sister programme Dira Ya Dunia, and Newsday which was to be co-presented from Africa with an editorial team based in Johannesburg. Africa Business Report was presented by the former SABC and CNBC reporter Lerato Mbele with a budget to travel around the continent reporting on the latest trends about an entrepreneurial Africa which now hosted six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies. Focus On Africa was a nightly news programme devoted to news and features about Africa. It was presented by the legendary Ghanaian journalist the late Komla Dumor.

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Focus On Africa provided a new showcase for the BBC’s stable of African journalists. At last, there was a home on television for African journalism. Early successes included Tomi Oladipo in Nigeria making a film about how Nigerians consumed more champagne than any other country outside France: Akwasi Sarpong demonstrated the Azonto dance craze which was gripping Ghana; Nomsa Maseko in South Africa reported on the township sport of street racers and car spinners, and, on a more serious note, Anne Soy in Nairobi discovered that abortion was the most googled word in Kenya and that led her to investigate the shadowy world of backstreet illegal abortions. There was still much work to do. I recall my ‘Newslist’ for the day Focus On Africa TV was launched. This was the list of news stories from across the continent that our Africa Bureaux intended to offer all BBC outlets that day: • 36 dead after churches are attacked in Kaduna in northern Nigeria; • Crisis Talks open in Mali to curtail a militant islamist group; • Liberia dismantles Ivorian rebel training camps; • Killer of right-wing leader Eugene Terreblanche to be sentenced today. These were all legitimate stories but still fixed on a narrow agenda of politics and conflicts. Clearly, we needed to broaden the agenda to incorporate some of the more positive stories that the Creative Africa Board had identified. Creative Africa also recognised the need for a “One BBC” collaborative approach in Africa in which the BBC Africa’s English and local language services needed to be amalgamated with the domestic newsgathering machine if it was to develop a collaborative management structure to build on the opportunities provided by this new programming. Bringing together the traditional silos of BBC’s primarily domestic-driven newsgathering operation and the World Service’s Language services would drive this new journalism agenda.

A Future of Collaboration After the launch of Focus On Africa TV and Dira Ya Dunia, the BBC’s Africa Editor responsible for its local language services Solomon Mugera caught this new mood of collaboration, observing that “over decades of

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multilingual broadcasting to Africa, the BBC has forged unique relations with radio audiences across the continent, telling the African story to the world and bringing the world to Africa. The BBC’s growing multimedia offer is evidence of its deep roots and knowledge of the continent. As we embark on this new journey, we are really excited to be partnering with some of the leading broadcasters in the region” (Solomon Mugera, Interview by author, September 2, 2021). It was a start. The realisation was emerging that the BBC had to embrace multimedia working in its journalism; the days of radio and television as separate entities were on the way out. There was a recognition of television partnerships with local broadcasters, but the BBC was still talking about broadcasting to Africa rather than from Africa. It was clear that a further shift was required if the BBC was to build on its reputation as a legacy brand and become a truly modern African broadcaster. The big transformation came just a few years later in 2016 when the British government’s Foreign Office decided to invest £85 million a year into the BBC in Asia and Africa which enabled the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s. Known as the World 2020 programme, in Africa, it included the launch of seven new language services and the opening of major new bureaux in Nairobi and Lagos. It also funded a massive training programme to train hundreds of newly recruited young African journalists in multimedia working while having instilled in them the BBC’s commitment to impartial and accurate journalism. (BBC, 2021a). In the new Nairobi Bureau for instance there are now 300 young African journalists at work along with a state-of-the-art television studio which has enabled BBC Africa to shift production from London into the continent. It can produce around 30  new weekly TV shows on African subjects and host a range of local productions which are screened on African partner networks. (Solomon Mugera. Interview by author. September 2, 2021). Among these new productions are programmes are The She Word, a discussion show featuring African women talking about women’s issues, and What’s New, a news show produced with local African partners and aimed at teenagers and children. What’s New is broadcast in English and has a French version called Actu Jeunes. Many of the strands are multilingual with the same production team producing versions in three and sometimes four languages. There are also specialist programmes dedicated to health, music, and culture and a range of daily and weekly sport and business programmes.

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Africa Eye is an investigative journalism programme, which seeks to expose corruption and wrongdoing in Africa that few local media outlets have the resources to carry out. The programme has won several awards including BBC’s Best Innovation award in 2020 for the story Sudan’s ‘Livestream Massacre’, and The Peabody Award for the story ‘Anatomy of a Killing’. Its debut programme investigated how codeine cough syrup, a medicine that became a street drug, was destroying thousands of lives in Nigeria. The immediate reaction was several arrests and the Nigerian government banning the import and manufacturing of the syrup. In 2020 Africa Eye, working with local reporters, exposed how university lecturers at universities in Nigeria and Ghana were demanding sex in exchange for grades. As a result, a professor in Nigeria was dismissed and the Nigerian Senate passed an anti-sexual harassment law. (BBC, 2019). Another good example of this transformation is Breakdown, now syndicated in 34 countries across the continent through the BBC’s network of TV partnerships with African broadcasters like Joy TV in Ghana, KTN in Kenya and Soweto TV in South Africa. (Mary Lusiba. Interview by author, September 2, 2021). Breakdown provides health advice about the COVID-19 pandemic to those in the continent and is presented by local young African journalists. According to the BBC, Breakdown explores acts of kindness within communities highlighting extraordinary efforts people are making to cope and survive during this crisis. (Mary Lusiba. Interview by author, September 2, 2021). Each week it answers viewers’ questions with Africa Health Correspondent Anne Soy. It profiles someone who has the virus or is recovering and explores what African governments are doing to combat the virus. It also seeks to explode the myths and disinformation around Covid and the pandemic. Meanwhile, Africa Explained is an attempt to answer audience questions. Recent editions have sought to explain why the genocide in Rwanda happened and a debate why Beyonce’s “Black Is King” music is so controversial in Africa. The World 2020 funding has also seen the launch of entertainment programming to showcase Africa’s creative outputs. Examples include This Is Africa, a new music show designed to bring African music to a global audience. The programme features reports on everyday life on the continent and recent editions have featured demonstrations of various African dance techniques and profiles of the continent’s musicians.

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Other new programming includes a raft of short documentaries which are screened on YouTube. Recently these documentaries have exposed the plight of African women who take jobs as maids in the Middle East, the widespread practice of older men supporting young women in return for sexual favours, and why so many African-Americans are leaving the US to start new lives in Ghana. The BBC also makes programmes together with African media partners. Gist Nigeria is a primetime show produced in Lagos in partnership with Channels TV which is one of Nigeria’s major media houses. Likewise, in East Africa, the Kenya Connect show is created in partnership with the Nairobi-based media giant KTN. The BBC has more than 70 African partner stations in 26 countries around the continent and has identified partnerships as a route to its rebranding strategy. Programmes like Gist Nigeria and Kenya Connect play a significant role in “Africanising the BBC offer”. (Mary Lusiba. Interview by author, September 2, 2021). Another strategy has been the launching of six new local language stations across East and West Africa. In addition to the well-established Swahili, Somali, Hausa, and French for Africa (BBC Afrique) which have all been on air for more than 60 years, the BBC has now added Afaan, Oromoo, Amharic, and Tigrinya for Ethiopian and Eritrean audiences, and Igbo, Yoruba and Pidgin for its vast audiences in Nigeria. This last addition has been a tremendous success both in terms of audience popularity and in giving the BBC cultural street credibility. Pidgin is a creole version of English widely spoken across West Africa but primarily in the Niger Delta. For many years Pidgin was not considered a ‘proper’ language by several senior managers at the BBC. These interventions are part of the BBC’s attempt to rebrand itself as an African broadcaster rather than a western in-plant. I remember many arguments over many years in the BBC with senior managers resisting calls to broadcast in Pidgin because it wasn’t a “proper language”. Those days have gone and the BBC has won many friends in the region by accepting Pidgin as a language in its own right. The BBC has therefore come a long way from its original ‘Imperial Echoes’ history. Where we used to hear a newsreader in a cut-glass English accent announcing “This is London and here is the news”, listeners to the Pidgin service are greeted with “All di local and world tori wey you suppose know in sixty seconds”. That’s the introduction to the BBC Minute in Pidgin and it is broadcast across Radio, TV, and digital outlets. The BBC Minute works across all outlets and is an attempt to give African

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audiences the main headlines in just a minute. Again it’s a far cry from the World Service news in former days when reporters had to write an extra 30 s to their reports because the World Service demanded one-and-a-halfminute long despatches whether there was enough to say or not.

Building Local Capacity and Audience Reach This new funding has seen BBC Africa grow from 150 staff in 2012 when Creative Africa was first launched to around 600 today. Most of these are African journalists based in Africa. The BBC has also seen its audience in Africa grow in the same period from 81 million in 2012 to 132 million a week today across 12 languages in TV, Radio, and Digital outlets. (BBC, 2021a). Nigeria, with its Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, and Pidgin audiences, accounts for 37 million across all platforms and is the BBC’s third-largest market after India with an audience of 60 million and the US with 49 million. Kenya accounts for 14.5 million and Tanzania a further 14 million. In terms of the new language stations the audience for Afaan Oromoo is up by 145%, Igbo is up 70%, Ahmaric 67% and Tigrinya up 65% year-on-­ year. (Ibid). Mugera comments that even in this new age of TV and Digital broadcasting the BBC’s radio output still commands a lion’s share of the audience: Radio remains the biggest platform and in many parts of Africa vernacular radio stations tend to perform better than those that broadcast in national or international languages. In Kenya for instance Radio Citizen remains the most popular because of its vernacular offer. In some areas where literacy level are low, the audience finds it easier to communicate and consume content in the vernacular. This could also be the reason the BBC Hausa, Somali and Swahili Services tend to do well as they have a way of covering key local issues in addition to their core offer of international news and current affairs. (Solomon Mugera. Interview by Author, September 2, 2021).

Moky Makura, Founder of Africa No Filter, an organisation that aims to support the development of journalism in Africa notes that the BBC plays a vital role not only in the training of African journalists but in providing African stories that local media do not have the resources or the newsgathering network to report. After interviewing almost forty African

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editors from 60 African news outlets. (Moky Makura. Interview by author. August 4, 2021). Makura’s team concluded that coverage of the continent in the local media accounted for less than 20% of stories published. Of this 20%, three out of four stories were general Africa-wide ones with only one out of four specifically reporting from a particular country. Given that most African media houses don’t have the budgets to send reporting teams to other African countries, the BBC with reporters in 46 countries is well placed to fill this content gap in local media. The Africa No Filter Report also discovered that 81% of the local media stories analysed were about conflicts and crises on the continent. Makura argues that African media are complicit in reinforcing the persistent narrative that Africa is broken (Makura, 2021). A BBC committed to rewriting how it tells the Africa story, and with the resources to employ specialist reporters across women’s affairs, health, and business for example and share material with its seventy African media partners ought to be a key driver of a new, less negative agenda for local media.

Broadening the Editorial Agenda Mugera sees a broadening of the editorial agenda as another key to audience success: BBC Africa’s offer is no longer limited to coverage of hard news that’s often dominated by stories of conflict, disaster, and diseases. There’s been a shift as teams are challenged to commission stories around innovation and development. They have the mandate to offer something refreshing and inspiring about Africa without of course neglecting major news stories even if they belong to the four Ds of death, debt, destruction, and disease. (Solomon Mugera. Interview by author. August 3, 2021).

This broadening of the editorial agenda can be seen in “in programmes such as Life Clinic for health matters, Money Daily and Smart Phone for issues around finance, business and innovation and… What’s New BBC Africa … the first-ever youth programme by an international broadcaster in Africa … and first women’s discussion programme The She Word”. It is no surprise that BBC Africa now has a weekly audience that has grown to 132 million a week as BBC content across radio, television and digital is now available on many more platforms. (BBC, 2021a). However,

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has the BBC in Africa achieved its objective of actually rewriting the African editorial narrative? I examined a week’s output in September 2021 to try to gain a sense of the range of stories covered by the broadcaster. It revealed that the BBC had reported from 34 different African countries and aired ninety different stories in this period. This compares favourably to coverage from my own output logs from 10 years ago in September 2011 when I was Head of Africa Bureaux. In that week I counted reports from just 12 countries and 29 stories. So this was three times as many stories from three times as many countries as a result of the World2020 expansion. In the same sample, in terms of topics, there is a visible broadening of the agenda. In 2011, 65% of the stories were about politics and/or conflict, by 2021 this had fallen to 43%. Coverage of arts and culture were at about the same level, but there are big increases in environment news, more sports, more gender issues, human rights stories, and much more health reporting, which is not surprising given the COVID-19 pandemic. The big three sub-Saharan powers of South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya still dominate the news output, but in 2021 stories were included from a further 30 other African countries as opposed to just eight in 2011. I was however surprised not to see more business stories getting into the main bulletins given the massive effort that has gone into creating Business Reporting Units. Perhaps that news sits inside the business programming but I would’ve expected some of those stories to break through into the main bulletins. It was also surprising not to see more stories on young people given Africa’s demographic revolution and also not to see more climate change stories given how much global warming is going to impact the continent. There is certainly room for including more of these genres in the mainstream news agenda. One very obvious shift over these 10 years is how the vast majority of reporters are African journalists. Some of the key names are Anne Soy and Ferdinand Omondi in Nairobi, Ishaq Khalid in Abuja, Nomsa Maseko and Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg, Shingai Nyoka in Harare, Laila Sy in Abidjan, Jose Tembe in Maputo, and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia to name just a few. In addition we’re seeing the emergence of specialist reporters like Esther Ogola the Women’s Affairs reporter and Rhoda Odhiambo the Health reporter both based in Nairobi. Although it is still widely portrayed in many academic studies how western media “parachute” western journalists into Africa to tell negative stories, I found

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virtually no examples in my survey of the BBC engaging in “parachute journalism”. The recruitment of local young journalists is reshaping the BBC’s Africa narrative, providing new perspectives on how to report the continent. Rachael Akidi, the Head of BBC East Africa and the Horn of Africa notes that are reminded “not to conform to some stereotype of what you think a BBC reporter ought to look and sound like. Keep your raw energy and keep your youth connections… We’re celebrating these African journalists who will carry the torch of BBC professionalism, accuracy, and impartiality into the future. We want to tell stories in different ways and help others learn these story-telling techniques. The BBC’s success has been about responding to what the audience needs—we need to know what this youthful audience actually wants”. (Rachael Akidi. Interview by author, September 1, 2021). This narrative shift is also noted by the BBC’s Head of Business Development in Africa Mary Lusiba who believes they are making the BBC more relevant to African audiences than it was 10 years ago: There was a time when the BBC was behind the curve and wasn’t moving with the times. People used to say my Dad used to listen to the BBC. Now we’re engaging young people with the brand. We’re making content about Africa produced by Africans and that’s allowed us to bring in fresh blood who look at the continent and report it in a different way. They’ve helped us grow audiences and boosted our digital offer which has really shifted the dial. (Mary Lusiba. Interview by author, September 2, 2021).

This massive recruitment has involved a lot of training in BBC editorial standards of impartiality and accuracy, along with multi-skilling so they can work across radio, TV, and digital outlets, preferably in more than one language. Meanwhile, the plethora of journalists broadcasting in their own languages have created a pool of talent, a vast newsgathering web which stretches across the continent through 46 countries, capturing new stories. This has been boosted by the digital revolution and the technological breakthrough which has made getting on air much easier. The days of having to book 10-min satellite feed from state-run TV stations have long gone, now journalists can go live on air from their smartphones.

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Leveraging Technology Radio remains the bedrock of the BBC’s international profile but the broadcaster has been embracing digital technologies. According to the former BBC Head of News and Journalism Professor Richard Sambrook, technology is changing how we obtain information. He cites mobile phones, RSS feeds, blog aggregators, search engines as providing “a greater depth and range of information than was not possible ten years ago. The social media phenomenon has turned Twitter into an effective news source. Everybody now has access to the public space, giving rise to citizen journalism and more”. (Sambrook, 2020, 27). Sambrook concludes that this has particularly transformed newsgathering and that’s why the BBC has a User-Generated Content Hub (UGC) staffed 24 h a day to capture material from these sources. Digital and social media platforms are widely used in Africa and BBC Africa’s young journalists are trained in how to turn the platform trends into stories relevant to their audiences. These social networks are crucial to the BBC’s new relationship with its audience. The media is no longer the preserve of those in authority. As some scholars have argued, the news has been democratised to the extent that anyone with a phone can get their stories out. According to Jamie Angus, Head of the BBC World Service Group, these new digital audiences have been key to the BBC’s success in boosting its audiences in Africa, helping the BBC to adapt and serve its audiences on the platforms they prefer to use. He says the BBC’s global digital audiences have almost doubled since the start of the World 2020 investment 4 years ago. He also points to a 129% increase on global platforms like YouTube to 47 million people a week accessing BBC content, overtaking Facebook with a 31% increase to 43 million (BBC, 2021a). From the business development perspective, Lusiba argues that the BBC moved quickly to adopt digital technology particularly considering Africa’s youthful general to whom such technology is native. (Mary Lusiba. Interview by author, September 2, 2021). This new digital agenda is well illustrated by the output on a programme such as The Comb, a weekly podcast for young listeners which brands itself as telling ‘African stories that matter to you’. Recent editions have tackled topics such as Infertility, Dementia, Job scams, Divorce, and a debate on the African names as a marker of one’s identity, issues which were previously not given as much media attention. The Comb is presented

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by the Zimbabwean journalist Kim Chakanetsa who fronts a pan-African production team comprising a designer from Nigeria, a composer from Kenya, and a Kenyan Editor from the Focus On Africa radio programme in London. But as the BBC in Africa continues to rebrand itself as an African broadcaster, what is its future?

Threats and Prospects for the BBC in Africa Can the next 10 years lead to further consolidation of the BBC’s recent success in Africa or will the BBC’s role in the continent come under threat as competitors catch up and its unique funding model stalls? The BBC is chiefly funded by the UK license fee with additional funding from commercial revenues and the UK government in the form of a grant channelled via the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Department (FCDO). “This Is London” may have given way to the Pidgin Minute, production may have significantly shifted to Africa, but the organisation’s paymasters still sit in London where they face a set of economic and political pressures quite distinct from the BBC’s issues in Africa. The World Service is mentioned proudly in government documents as a “globally recognised and respected” media brand (UK Gov, 2021) but domestically it continues to face annual cutbacks in its journalists and is threatened by opponents, including the current Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Nadine Dorries, who question the concept of the BBC’s main income from the licence fee. She has threatened to scrap it. The BBC doesn’t seem to have many friends in the UK government at present and there are further pressures from commercial interests and politicians who want to abolish the BBC’s major source of funding, the licence fee, and cut the Corporation’s size. Could this prove to be the Achilles heel that will ultimately bring about BBC Africa’s retreat from the continent or even its demise? The BBC World Service calls itself “The World’s Radio Station”. The former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan once called it “Britain’s Gift to the World” but the BBC is not simply the product of British altruism. The BBC knows it is engaged in a fierce battle for audiences and influence with other national broadcasters like China’s CGTN, Russia’s RT and many more, along with commercial rivals like CNN and Sky. It, therefore, has to

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justify to its continued funding to contest that battle for the hearts, minds, ears, and eyeballs of a continent which is poised to double in size by 2050. The BBC makes the case that its independent editorial stance and its commitment to impartiality and the accuracy of its reporting make it an essential beacon of truth in a dangerous world inhabited by fake news and deliberate disinformation (BBC, 2021b). It points to its “Beyond Fake News” project to help improve media literacy and original research into what makes people share false news, and it showcases its investigative journalism programme “Africa Eye” as a unique platform for exposing corruption and wrong-doing and fighting misinformation and its potential for undermining democracy and promoting authoritarian solutions (Ibid.). This has made it draw some support from the UK government who have, for example, endorsed the importance of the BBC’s role in countering fake news and disinformation. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has recently given £8 million of new funding for projects to tackle harmful disinformation, challenge inaccurate reporting and improve digital engagement in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. (BBC, 2021b). Meanwhile, the UK’s government’s National Security Strategy and Defence review (Integrated Review) described the BBC as “reaching into some of the most remote places in the world, providing a link to the UK for individuals and societies who would otherwise not have this opportunity” and it pledged to invest £85  million a year to build the BBC’s global reach. Although visibly interested in being ‘local’ the BBC has simultaneously positioned itself as part of the UK’s soft diplomacy apparatuses. In its written evidence to the Foreign Office (BBC, 2021a) requesting more funding, the organisation highlighted how its audience growth would “ultimately deliver tangible returns for the UK” and “make other objectives—a Global Britain, economic growth through trade, and the promotion of open societies sharing UK values easier to achieve”. Government investment, the BBC concluded, “can help ensure that the UK’s voice and values will continue to resonate powerfully around the globe” (Ibid). The BBC’s financial model will however have implications for its future. It remains unclear where Africa fits in the UK’s current global aspirations. In the UK government’s recent global policy review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (UK Gov, 2021) there was barely a mention of Africa as the country looks firmly east to the Pacific and past partners like New Zealand and Australia in the old white Commonwealth. The

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BBC is also dealing with a UK Government that is grappling with a massive financial debt following the long Covid-19 crisis. That government has already broken Manifesto promises not to raise national insurance and taxes to help boost funding for a struggling National Health Service. Internationally, it has broken another manifesto promise not to cut international aid by reducing the UK’s aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5%. In addition, it has frozen an increase in the licence fee that still provides the majority of the BBC’s income. As a result the BBC needs to make $32 million of savings and that is likely to impact on the BBC’s Africa services too. There are already proposals announced in October 2022 to cut fifty jobs in BBC Africa’s London newsroom and to shift from TV and Radio production to digital distribution. For instance, it’s been proposed to turn the long-standing Focus On Africa radio programme into a daily Podcast, likewise Hausa, Somali and Afrique TV services and magazine programmes for children, women and the youth are also likely to be casualties of the cuts along with regional strands like Kenya Connects which played a prominent health education role during the Covid pandemic. The BBC says it’s responding to changing audience habits in Africa by shifting more of its content away from TV and Radio and on to digital outlets. This shift to digital could be visionary but it is also fraught with risk in a market where 600 million people don’t even have access to electricity, where connectivity is often patchy and data is expensive. Although the BBC has a massive combined audience of 63 million people in Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania alone, a significant percentage of those audiences are accessing the BBC via radio. In the so-called lifeline services in areas of conflict in South Sudan, Somalia and parts of north east Nigeria audiences tend to be even more reliant on radio as their prime source of news. Audience numbers, and in turn the BBC’s influence, are likely to decline as many listeners in these areas are unlikely to have the wherewithal to switch to smartphones and digital services any time soon. Whatever financial pressures may lie ahead, the BBC transformation in Africa has been notable and impactful. It remains a major player in Africa’s media landscape and if it disappeared for whatever reason, it would leave a big hole in that landscape both as a provider of content across radio, TV and digital and as a significant training centre for a rising generation of African media talent.

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References BBC. (2021a). BBC World Service Performance Review. Retrieved from https:// downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/reports/bbc-­ws-­report-­v4.pdf BBC. (2021b). BBC World Service to Receive Continued Additional Funding from Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Retrieved from https://www. bbc.com/mediacentre/2021/world-­service-­funding BBC. (2019, October 8). Nigeria Lecturer Suspended After BBC Africa Eye ‘Sex for Grades’ film. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ world-­africa-­49971067 Horrocks, P. (2013). Rewriting the African Editorial Narrative. Rhodes Journalism Review., 2013(33), 131–132. Makura, M. (2021). How African Media Covers Africa. Retrieved from https:// africanofilter.org/uploads/files/How-­A frican-­M edia-­C overs-­A frica_ Report.pdf Sambrook, R. (2020). Are Foreign Correspondents Redundant? The Changing Face of International News. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. UKGov. (2021). The UK Government’s Integrated Review. The National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. Retrieved from https:// www.gov.uk/government/publications/global-­britain-­in-­a-­competitive-­age-theintegrated-review-of-­security-­defence-­development-­and-­foreign-­policy

CHAPTER 7

China Global Television Network’s Debate Show, ‘Talk Africa’: Conflict, Economics, and Geopolitics Bob Wekesa

Introduction The China Central Television Africa (CCTV Africa) was launched in January 2012 and rebranded as China Global Television Network Africa (CGTN Africa) in 2016. The launch was met with heightened interest in China, Africa, and the West. From the Chinese end, effusive narratives priming the broadcaster as a voice for Africa took a decidedly global south versus global north hue. China, considering itself a developing nation, was inviting Africa to join in on creating a media platform that would construct a narrative to challenge the developed world. From Africa, sentiments oscillated between at least two poles. On the one hand, there was exuberance about the possibility of favourable coverage for the continent against the background of years of exasperation with putative Western

B. Wekesa (*) African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_7

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media coverage of the continent as a place of disease, war, and famine. On the other hand, worries were expressed over apparent attempts by the Chinese to roll out a propagandist narrative with an eye on their self-­ serving interests, primarily Africa’s latent natural resources. From the West, there was a surfeit of fears ranging from China outcompeting established broadcasters such as CNN, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and France 24 thereby winning the soft power game in the global sphere, to concerns about the exporting of less than free and open Chinese media and journalistic practices into an ostensibly fragile continent. It is these differing perspectives that inform this chapter. Before launching into a study of CGTN Africa, one must however take a step back since CGTN Africa is but a small fraction of an extensive Chinese media network in Africa and globally. While this broadcaster operates in line with a Chinese logic broadly, it also has its own unique attributes that set it apart from other Chinese electronic and print media outlets. Indeed, far from CGTN Africa being a standalone entity in the constellation of Chinese media, it is part of a wider ecology of the country’s media and communications system, one whose tentacles have spread rapidly and widely across the world in the last two decades.

Overview of Chinese Media in Africa A major development in Africa’s media space since the turn of the century has been the ramped up and often physical entry of Chinese media. However, Chinese media such as Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily, China Africa magazine, and China Radio International have either had a physical presence in Africa or had editorial foci since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 (Wekesa, 2014; Wekesa & Zhang, 2014; Banda, 2009; Xin, 2009, 366–367; Wu, 2012, 12; Liang, 2010, 267). The current phase of Chinese media engagements in Africa can be traced to the 1990s leading to a phenomenon emergent in the 2000s dubbed “media going out” (see Hu & Ji, 2012; Nelson, 2013). The “media going out” strategy of which CGTN Africa is part has been heavily funded by the Chinese government even though exact figures are hard to come by because they are not openly reported. Hu and Ji (2012, 33) projected that the media investment in projects abroad at $6 billion a figure close to that provided by Lye and Chong (2010). Zhang (2013, 5) presented Chinese media internationalization figure of RMB 15 billion ($2.19) for just one outlet, The People’s Daily. Nelson (2013, 17)

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suggested the figure of $8.9 billion for public diplomacy including mediabased public diplomacy. In the US alone, China Daily is said to have spent $20.8 m between 2017 and 2018 (Lim & Bergin, 2018), a strategy that is also visible in Africa. Another analysis points out that Chinese investments in media outreach stood at $2.8 billion for the period 2008 and 2018 (Raksha Kumar, 2021). These figures are patchy and verification of exact amounts of money is not assured. The key point to note is that the Chinese state-party has and continues to invest heavily in international media of which CGTN Africa is a part. Today, the most important outbound Chinese media are housed under the umbrella of the China Media Group which was created in 2018 bring together broadcast media. The presence of Chinese media in Africa was ramped from the mid-2000s with a more direct and physical rollout of media establishments such as China Radio International (CRI 2006), Xinhua News Agency (1986, re-calibrated 2006), StarTimes (2007), China Daily (published since December 2012, launched January 2013), China Africa magazine (set up an African office in South Africa, 2012), People’s Daily (with correspondents in South Africa since the mid-2000s) and the launch of CGTN as CCTV Africa in 2012 (Wekesa & Zhang, 2014, 4; Shubo & Ronning, 2013, 3). Of these, CGTN Africa along with the privately-owned pay-TV company, StarTimes, have attracted exponentially higher reactions and responses from policy, intellectual and academic communities from around the world compared to their “native” print and radio counterparts. For instance, Wekesa and Zhang (2014, 6–11) reviewed Western media coverage of the launch of CGTN Africa and found that it was a sustained news item for months on end by Western counterparts such as CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, VoA, Deutsche Welle, New York Times, Huffington Post, The Guardian (UK). CGTN Africa has drawn much more attention than its sibling regional broadcasters, namely, CGTN Arabic (established July 2009), CGTN Russian (launched September 2009), CGTN Spanish and CGTN French (both launched in 2004), and CGTN America (also 2012) as well as the Europe bureau of CGTN (launched in London in 2019) (Wekesa & Zhang, 2014).

CGTN Africa in the CCTV and CGTN Structure The terms “CGTN” and “CCTV” can be confusing until one understands the labyrinthine interlocking of the two. CGTN Africa is part of a large and intricate CCTV network with over 18 channels broadcast in mainland

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China and incorporating the other CGTN regional bureaus. The hub of CCTV-CGTN is a 51-storey skyscraper in Beijing. CGTN’s Africa headquarters are in Nairobi. CGTN Africa’s programming is inserted in the English language CCTV News with the programs broadcast periodically as part of the wider Chinese and global coverage of news, events, talk shows, and features. For instance, when there is breaking news from an African country, the news item may rise to the top of the CCTV News’ broadcasting and the content would have been provided by CGTN Africa. Thus, while CGTN Africa may have the feel of an independent broadcasting entity, it is in fact part of the whole. In these respects, therefore, CCTV-CGTN is a major global media establishment in the league of BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera. CCTV and therefore CGTN are managed by China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) which is tightly linked to the Communist Party of China (CPC). CGTN Africa’s work is therefore in turn linked to CPC’s ideological interests at home and abroad. Equally, CGTN Talk Africa—the focus of this chapter—is part of a broader CGTN Africa’s programming including Africa Live (news and current affairs); Faces of Africa (features); Match Point (sports) and Global Business Africa (economics and finance). Talk Africa is a 30-min weekly talk show that discusses current affairs in Africa on the platform of CCTV Africa (CCTV 2014). From early on, it was evident that CGTN Africa would seek to change the narrative of China in Africa. Zhang (2013, 7) studied CGTN Africa from its January 2012 launch to April 2012 and found that it aimed to ‘conquer global discussion of norms and values’ and to change the then extant news media practices and outputs. While challenging the dominant Western narrative of China in Africa, CGTN Africa had the soft power intentions of winning the hearts and minds in African as criticism of Chinese economic dealings in Africa mounted (see Gagliardone, 2013). A significant approach has been the proximity that CGTN Africa has forged with African political class and eschewing content inimical to African governments (Wekesa, 2013b; Zhang, 2013). However, it has been noted that CGTN Africa does not broadcast only positive news from Africa as it does not shy away from reporting contentious issues such as fractious election processes and armed conflicts (Zhang, 2013, 17; Gagliardone, 2013, 32).

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Focus on Talk Africa: Framing the Continent The key question is whether CGTN Africa has achieved its stated goal of serving as a voice for Africa and its implicit objectives of countering ostensibly negative Western coverage of China in Africa. Using a content analysis approach, the chapter analyses CGTN Africa’s programming in its debate and talk show segment—“Talk Africa”—rather than in its news and features segments. Talk Africa’s topics and episodes are mined from CGTN’s online platform, and their attendant topics and themes are deciphered for patterns and trends over a 10-year period. The aim is to find out what the topics and themes mean for CGTN’s and therefore China’s interests, strategy, and ambitions in Africa and the world. The chapter focuses on the talk show whose objective was described in 2014 as being to “provide a platform for open and frank discussions and deep reflection on issues that affect the continent whether political, social or economic” while “generating valuable suggestions, recommendations and solutions that implementers may find useful” (Wekesa & Zhang, 2014). It can be argued that the nature of Talk Africa as a deliberate and ideologically loaded program provides an entry point into wider considerations. The chapter does not, therefore, explore the production-cum-­ reception threads or the types of journalistic genres, practices, and styles that CCTV Africa has employed in Africa (see Wekesa & Zhang, 2014). Another caveat is that the focus is not on the anchors, experts, and discussants selected for the talk show as this would distract from a focus on the political, economic, and geopolitical themes which provide a broad brush of perspectives. Reviewing the talk show guests would have provided interesting perspectives on the CGTN Africa as a political, economic, foreign policy, and geopolitical tool of the Chinese party-state. However, this can be considered in a future study as a focus on the anchors and expert-discussants would distract from the core aim of this chapter. Nonetheless, the chapter transiently weighs in on high-level interviewees at the level of presidents, prime ministers, and diplomats. The data is mined from CGTN Africa’s Talk Africa online platform. Following Wekesa and Zhang (2014, 20–23), the chapter uses media framing analysis approaches to place the data into “neater packages of categories and secondly, to afford a more incisive examination and assessment” across topics and themes. Essentially, the media framing analysis is paired with content analysis, “a method of studying and analysing communication in a systematic, objective, and quantitative manner for the

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purpose of measuring variables” (Wimmer & Dominick, 2000, 135). News or media frames are conceptually understood as traits and characteristics of “persistency, frequency, consistency, selection and placement, contextualization, inclusion and exclusion, insertion and emphasis and elaboration” (Wekesa, 2013a; Wekesa & Zhang, 2014 see also Pan & Kociski, 1993, 56; Reese, 2001, 11). Media framing analysts have offered economic consequences (read here as economics) and conflict frames as some of the prominent frames in media texts (see de Vreese et  al., 2001). In addition to economics and conflict, the chapter includes the geopolitical frame which “relates to topics on relations between African nations and international players, be it other nations and regions or global institutions” (Wekesa & Zhang, 2014, 20). Thus, the content analysis seeks to focus on these three frames. A second level of analysis paired with the three frames and undertaken in loose fashion is figures out perceptions. The chapter draws on the author’s theorising of the perceptions of optimism and pessimism. In a nutshell “optimism would be good for Chinese interests in/with Africa and African interests in/with China, while pessimism would be a challenge for Chinese interests in/with Africa and vice versa, posing problems Africa’s engagement with China” (Wekesa, 2020, 274–275). In the rest of the chapter, we first begin with a summary of the findings from earlier studies (July 2012—October 2014) (Wekesa, 2014; Wekesa & Zhang, 2014) followed by the latest data for the period November 2014 to October 2021.

The Conflict Frame In the earlier studies for the period 2012–2014, Talk Africa’s episodes were more preponderant in the conflict frame than in the economics frame. In that period, armed conflicts, and political turmoil most of them linked to Islamic fundamentalist-inspired terrorism were underway in countries such as Egypt, Somalia, Libya, and Mali. Civil wars were happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan while election-related strife was rife in Burundi. Cross-border conflicts were ongoing between South Sudan and Sudan, and between DRC sucked in Rwanda and Uganda. These were all negative intra-state conflicts (e.g., Egypt and Mali) and the fact that they were subject for the debates sustains the fact that CGTN Africa would not shy away from adversarial developments in Africa. Neither did Talk Africa turn away from inter-state

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conflicts. A case in point is a show entitled “Tit-for-tat diplomacy” (March 16, 2016), dealing with the diplomatic spat between South Africa and Rwanda. However, it was noted that in the debates, there was an effort to frame the conflicts with optimistic lenses, giving hope that the conflicts could be resolved. It was also noted that in several of the episodes, the West came in for criticism as in the case of an episode in October 2013 when the US and NATO were upbraided for initiating the turmoil that engulfed Libya after the 2011 fall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime. On the other hand, China was elevated for its peacekeeping in conflict-prone countries such as Sudan, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Armed Conflicts In the new data collected for the period November 2014 to October 2021, there is a reversal in that the conflict frame has taken a back seat while episodes in the economic frame are much more pronounced even though civil wars, armed conflicts, popular protests, and terrorist attacks continue to surface in the coverage. There are at least 15 such episodes some of the most illustrative being: “Burundi Presidential Problems” (May 19, 2015); “South Sudan, back on the brink” (August 6, 2016); “Boko Haram 10 years later” (August 13, 2019); “Kenya’s War on Terrorism” (January 22, 2019); “Libya’s Protracted War” (August 2, 2020); “Guinea’s military takeover” (September 18, 2021). Inter-Africa Conflict Cross-border conflicts include, “The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam” (November 26, 2014) in which discussants are ambivalent, not taking pro-Ethiopian or pro-Egyptian position but merely dwelling on the merits and demerits of each of these large African nations’ claims over the Nile River. Conflicts with a geopolitical turn include “Africa and World War 2” (September 6, 2015); Africa ICC exit (December 4, 2016); America burns (June 10, 2020) (the George Floyd murder case); “All eyes on the US” (November 22, 2020). In these, we see a continued critique of the role of the West, particularly the US in Africa. Several conflicts are rendered with an optimistic turn indicating that the solutions to developments such as civil wars are a work in progress. These include “New dawn for South Sudan?” (January 16, 2016); “A Solution for Somalia?” (February 18, 2017); “The DRC’s change of guard”

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(January 30, 2019); “Nigeria and Senegal decide” (March 5, 2019) and “Sudan’s road to peace” (August 27, 2019). Conflicts on social and economic developments can be considered conflicts of opinion and perspectives than armed conflicts. Examples of these include episodes on the plight of African children, “Africa’s child marriages (April 3, 2016, July 11, 2019) and “Foreign Adoption of African Children” (September 22, 2019). Other conflict-framed episodes focus on youth, human-wildlife conflicts, migration, and clashes wrought by climate change. Elections Significantly, elections are discussed from both optimistic and pessimistic angles. Elections with an optimistic bend include “Africa’s Progress in Holding Democratic Elections” (October 12, 2015) an episode that enumerates countries where elections have been held successfully regularly. Elections with a pessimistic turn have a higher incidence, however: “Africa’s 3rd term debate” (February 20, 2016); “Liberia presidential election” (November 15, 2017); “Sisi’s Second Term” (June 10, 2018); “Zimbabwe’s new beginning” (August 12, 2018); “South Africa decides” (May 14, 2019). Kenyan elections appear as a special case probably since CGTN is based in Nairobi providing room and convenience for close coverage. Episodes in the new data include five episodes simply entitled “Kenyan elections broadcast between August 8, 2017, and August 16, 2017.

The Economic Frame Africa Rising One of the findings from the earlier studies does not support the supposition that the Chinese government and party would leverage Talk Africa to unabashedly promote its economic interests. In the findings from previous analysis, there were just two Talk Africa episodes focused on Chinese economic interests in Africa propounding China’s support for Africa. On the contrary, most of the economics episodes in the earlier study were inclined towards matters such as the long-running issue of Africa’s natural resource endowment simultaneously being a resource curse. The earlier study also found an appreciable focus on the optimistic “Africa rising” versus

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pessimistic “Africa retrogressing” narratives. Examples include “Africa Rising: Myth or fact” (January 13, 2013), “The state of the African continent” (November 3, 2013), “Rebuilding Somalia” (May 12, 2013), “Can Africa trade with Africa” (May 5, 2013). Episodes such as “Migrants die at sea” (October 13, 2013) and “South Africa labour standoff” (September 8, 2013) were pessimistic. The framing of episodes such as “New face, same problems” (May 8, 2012) about the ascendency of South African politician Nkozasna Dlamini-Zuma to the position of African Union Chairperson was simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic. In the data from the more recent period, the Africa rising narrative, has a shortage of frame sponsors unlike the period up to 2015. This is apart from an episode entitled “Uranium’s role in Namibia’s economy” (March 22, 2020) which discusses a joint venture—Swakop Uranium—in which Chinese interests invested approximately 5  billion  US  dollars, with the investment said to be China’s largest industrial investment in Africa. The natural resources boom that spurred African economies in the period before 2015 had reversed by early 2016 as seen in an episode entitled “Africa commodities trade” (March 5, 2016) and “Africa scaling the value chain” (July 21, 2018), both critiquing the low levels of benefits from Africa’s vast natural resources. One of the rare episodes in which Chinese investments in the natural resources sector is covered is a debate show. Data from the latter period does not play up the specific Africa rising phraseology. Nonetheless several episodes speak to the narrative of continental prosperity such as “Tripartite Free Trade Area in Africa” (June 30, 2015) which set the stage for the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area, broadcast as “Africa’s new trade bloc” (August 4, 2019), aimed at integrating intra-Africa trade. A similar episode is “Rwanda’s economic miracle” (May 9, 2016), demonstrates that Talk Africa’s focus on specific African countries is often optimistic while pessimism is often reserved for continental narratives despite variances. Similar episodes include “Africa Leadership Network” (December 19, 2017) and “Africa CEO Forum” (March 31, 2019). Industrialization Pessimistic episodes can be straightforward, such as “Floods in Africa” (September 22, 2020). Others are more subtle. However, pessimism as a perception in Talk Africa’s economics episodes is not linear but based on Chinese, African, and Western perspectives. For instance, an episode can

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show pessimism towards Africa but optimism towards China all at once. A pessimistic episode can seemingly be focused on Africa, for instance, “industrializing Africa” (November 8, 2015, and May 9, 2016), dealing with low levels of manufacturing capacity However, the insertion of China infuses optimism in the sense that China can help Africa achieve industrialization. This framing can be said to be self-serving for China. This framing much the same as the reporting on agriculture and food security with three episodes as evidence. Environment and Climate Change Environmental disasters are comprehended as being exasperated by civil wars and are linked to climate change topics and on to food insecurity. These contribute to pessimistic economic framing as in the examples of, “What can be done to mitigate the effects of El Nino and Africa’s drought?” (November 6, 2016), “Fighting Africa’s famine” (March 19, 2017) and “Fighting Africa’s famine” (April 18, 2017). Other pessimistic environmental and ecological conservation include, “Extinction crisis in Africa” (October 12, 2020) and “Conservation through cooperation” (May 22, 2017). On the continuum of optimism internal to African countries, we see episodes discussing bans on the use of plastic bags in Kenya and Tanzania on July 31, 2017, and June 9, 2019, respectively. The countries of Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Nigeria figure prominently. Some of the episodes include a positive narrative on China as cases where Chinese state and corporate entities make food donations to African countries after appeals by African leaders. In fact, some of the episodes in which China would supposedly help Africa are quite clear-­ cut in their top-level framing as in “Lifting Africa’s Poor” (June 25, 2017) and, “China-Africa cooperation on poverty” (September 20, 2017). The poverty theme is accentuated in matters to do with children and youth such as, “Maternal and new-born health (September 30, 2018), “Education and employment in Africa” (June 16, 2019) and “Spotlight on deaf rights” (October 2, 2021) dealing with child mortality, unemployment, lack of skills and health problems. Infrastructure and Governance In the infrastructure sector, we continue to see the mingling of pessimism towards Africa and optimism for China as in “Africa’s Infrastructure”

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(April 2, 2017). Africa’s infrastructural deficits are paired with an elevation of China’s capacity and willingness to help through the Belt and Road initiative. Similarly, an episode on urbanization, “World Cities Day: Urbanization and Africa” (November 3, 2019) compares the rising numbers of urban dwellers against the paucity of housing and amenities. China’s massive investment in railway networks encapsulated in an episode entitled “Africa’s high-speed rail networks” (October 15, 2016) broadcast during the signing of an agreement between China and the African Union in the context of AU’s long term development plan, Agenda 2063. Two of the episodes all broadcast in June 2017 focus on the so-called Kenyan Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). Topics around governance, resource mobilization for national and continental developmental projects, and fiscal matters more broadly dovetail from a framing point of view. Most are pessimistic, underlining the challenge of bad governance, particularly corruption, donor-reliance in Africa including “AU Summit: Africa’s war on corruption” (February 20, 2018) and “Africa’s fight against corruption” (July 8, 2018), “Funding the African Union” (May 14, 2018) and “Tackling Africa’s budget deficit” (July 15, 2018). An episode on “Zimbabwe Economic Crisis” (October 20, 2018) brings in the national dimensions of Africa’s paucity of internal developmental funds. COVID-19 The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 has become the hook around which episodes backpedalling to earlier themes are wrapped. In “COVID-19’s impact on education” (May 4, 2020) we see a reversion to the problem of lack of capacity in ICT infrastructure that would have ensured the continuation of learning in schools. In “Is Africa ready to re-­ open?” (May 11, 2020) the conclusion is that African economies would be negatively affected due to paucity in medical intervention resources that would cushion the poor. In “COVID-19 and Food Security” (April 11, 2020), the issue of famines on the continent is revisited. In “COVID-19 and social order” (December 13, 2020) and “Impact of COVID on mental health” (June 17, 2021), issues of poverty discussed in the pre-­ pandemic period find new expression. The self-explanatory episode “Turbulence hits Africa’s Airlines” (May 17, 2020) where airlines in South Africa and Mauritius had collapsed due to the pandemic recalls an earlier one entitled “Liberalising Africa’s skies”

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(June 21, 2015) and “Is a border-less Africa a good or a bad thing?” (June 16, 2016), which had focused on difficulties of intra-Africa travel due to poor connectivity and expensive air tickets. Only one aviation episode tends towards optimism “Reopened skies and tourism” (August 20, 2020). Indeed, the rest of the COVID-19 focused episodes are pessimistic, namely, “Search for COVID-19 vaccine” (July 19, 2020), “The Scramble for COVID-19 vaccines” (November 28, 2020), and Africa’s COVID-19 Vaccine roll out (February 3, 2021). A key framer of pessimism is Africa’s incapacity to produce vaccines or to procure them from manufacturing countries. Where optimism is on hand pessimism is inserted making an episode ambivalent in terms of perceptions, for instance, “Africa’s mixed bag” (April 26, 2020). Optimism is seen in countries succeeding in managing the pandemic, namely, Mauritius, South Africa, Ghana, and Rwanda. Digital Economy While the larger percentage of digital economy episodes are forward-­ looking for both Africa and China, at least two over the analysis period focus on Africa’s vulnerabilities: “Africa’s Cyber Security” (July 2, 2017) and “Mobile money security” (October 14, 2018). The optimism entertains technologies as game-changers for African economies. A two-part series entitled “Africa’s e-commerce opportunity” aired in July 2018, primes a visit to Kenya and Rwanda by the founder of the Chinese e-­commerce firm Alibaba, framing e-commerce as a solution to Africa’s youth unemployment problem. A show entitled “5G Shaping the future” (November 30, 2019) promotes Chinese interests in cutting edge technologies at a time when a trade war between China and the US had been provoked by former US President Donald Trump, becoming one of the most reported developments at the time. Arts and Culture While there are several episodes focused on Chinese culture discussed later in the chapter,, there are several that entirely focus on African culture via art, film, sport, and feel-good features. Many of the cultural episodes are Afrocentric and take a feature-like presentation and can be said to directly raise likeability towards CGTN Africa among African audiences. They include “A walk through Lamu” (April 30, 2019); “Africa Cup of Nations

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2019” (July 1, 2019) and “Africa and the World Cup” (June 16, 2018); “Mauritius-The melting pot” (August 19, 2019); “African arts, culture and heritage” (February 7, 2021); “Turkana, more than the cradle of Mankind” (September 11, 2021) and a two-part series entitled “Life along The Nile”, broadcast on January 14, 2020, and February 2, 2020.

The Geopolitics Frame In the earlier studies, several of the Talk Africa shows relating to geopolitics were explicit and focused on news developments. As we shall see below China’s relatively new rebound in Africa against the relatively longer-term presence of “traditional partners”, most notably, the U.S. is a major point of discussion. Several episodes related to the indisposition and eventual death of former South African statesman, Nelson Mandela in 2013 including “Get well Madiba” (June 23, 2013), “Happy Mandela Day” (July 21, 2013), “Fare thee well “Madiba”” (December 15, 2013) and “Nelson Mandela 1918-2013” (December 8, 2013). Other episodes were also topical and straightforward such as “Row over the Nile” (July 28, 2013), “Change of guard at WTO: What’s in store for Africa?” (May 19, 2013) and “Sudan and South Sudan fresh start” (April 21, 2013). An episode entitled “South Africa’s soft power in Africa” (April 28, 2013) was an interesting one as the guests discussed the place of the Rainbow nation in Africa vis a vis China itself and other continental powers such as Nigeria. The earlier studies showed that China was inserted in some of the Talk Africa shows that had on the face of it, nothing to do with China. The conclusion was that this was a subtle strategy to include Chinese perspectives and therefore boost China’s influence on the continent. In several of the earlier geopolitics shows, the West is the subject of criticism by the guests. The particularly vociferous episodes related to the arraignment of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto at the International Criminal Court, namely, “President Kenyatta lays it bare” (June 9, 2013), “Kenyan cases expose ICC soft underbelly” (October 20, 2013), “Kenyan cases big test for ICC” (September 15, 2013) and “Kenyan presidential election 2013” (February 17, 2013). It came across that CGTN Africa kept a close eye on visits by U.S. leaders to Africa as in the case of visits by former secretary state Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, including “Storm over Hillary Clinton’s Africa trip” (August 12, 2012) and “Obama returns to Africa” (June 30, 2013). The framing of these episodes was such that the West was “unfairly”

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targeting African nations as China came to the support of Africa. There was also a move towards showcasing China’s support for Africa even in shows relating to the visit of US leaders. One of the episodes was, symbolically, broadcast live from the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa where African leaders critiqued the West over the implementation of the Rome Statutes which established the ICC. Other shows in this category were framed from the perspective that the West targeted Africa over issues of governance, human rights, and democracy. A country that was the subject of a good number in these kinds of shows was Zimbabwe under the late President Robert Mugabe, for instance, “Zimbabwe fights back” (September 22, 2013) and “Zimbabwe decides” (August 4, 2013). In a September 1, 2013, talk show entitled “I have a dream speech lives on”, the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the iconic speech by Martin Luther King co-opted issues of racial relations in the U.S. while also bringing in the idea that continental Africans had not gained from the civil rights movement. More explicit in the promotion of Chinese soft power were the episodes relating to President Xi Jinping’s visit to Africa including “Economic and political implications of President Xi’s African tour” (April 7, 2013), “Key outcomes of Durban BRICS Summit” (March 31, 2013), “President Xi Jinping Africa visit” (March 24, 2013). These shows were without exception optimistic about China-Africa relations rendered in gushing language. The instrumental use of CGTN Africa was evident with the transition of power from former President Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping into episodes “Change of guard in China” (November 11, 2012) and “Change of guard in China” (March 3, 2013) showing that major developments in China would be broadcast to African audiences in talk show format and thereby the interests of Chinese authorities in seeking the acceptability of the new leader. In the new data collected for the period November 2014 to October 2021, the geopolitical frame has continued to be a major area of focus and with increasing sophistication. For instance, an episode such as “Mauritius oil spill” (August 22, 2020) may appear a straightforward one until you grasp the fact that the sea vessel involved in the accident is Japanese and that Japan is China’s competitor in East Asia. And, while some of the episodes are fully focused on Africa with little insertion of China—such as “Foreign adoption of African children” (December 8, 2019), “Change of guard at SADC” (August 24, 2015) and two episodes on the closure of a refugee camp in Kenya (May 21, 2016; June 18, 2016)—most of the geopolitical episodes are about Africa and China in the global sphere.

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Summitry Most of the geopolitical episodes devolve from the many international forums, conferences, and summits between Chinese and African actors. This summitry or summit diplomacy in places such as the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, the UN headquarters in New York, in Davos during the World Economic Forum sessions, in Beijing during numerous congregations such as the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Belt and Road Initiative forums, in Nairobi during sessions at the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and in multiple locations on and off the continent. That CGTN Africa can cover this events on-location shows its resource capacity in terms of transporting staff and equipment. Some of the events on which the episodes are purpose-­made, specifically set up to discuss Africa and China, an example being “China-Africa Investment Forum” (December 19, 2017) in Beijing and “China-Africa joint response against COVID-19” (August 21, 2020), a webinar organized by the Chinese mission to the African Union. Other events are focused on China, but Africa is introduced into the discussion as in commemorative events, “40 years of development in China” (December 23, 2018) and “UN at 75” (September 27, 2020). Globalization and Multilateralism In the data, there are various iterations to China’s championship of globalization and multilateralism. The UN is a significant platform for studying the geopolitical framing of Africa-China relations. China’s growing involvement in Africa’s security and conflict resolution arena through UN peacekeeping missions forms one strand of engagement indicating that China’s continental presence is diversifying from economic engagements to the security realm. Episodes such as “The men in Blue Helmets in Africa” (June 2, 2015) and “Peacekeeping in Africa” (November 24, 2018) are good examples. Episodes around China increasingly becoming a world leader in globalization and multilateralism is a source of geopolitics-laden framing. Indeed, one of the pointedly pro-Chinese multilateralism episodes is entitled “Africa and Globalization” (February 3, 2019) during which China’s playing by globally agreed rules is compared to US’s withdrawal from multilateralism particularly during the Donald Trump presidency. A session entitled “China’s Presidency at the UNSC” (November 20, 2018)

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primes China’s push for the kind of multilateralism that would help torpedo protectionism especially as trade wars between China and the US loomed large. A debate session such as “Africa and the UN” (September 28, 2015) is forged in the notion that Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks for Africa on issues such as the migration crises, like “UN’s New Development Goals” (October 4, 2015) and “China Open for Business” (November 11, 2018). Episodes on China and Africa in climate-related multilateralism include: “UN in a changing world (October 7, 2018), “Africa and the Paris Climate Accord” (June 14, 2017), a two-part series entitled “Africa at UNGA Part 1” (October 4, 2017, October 4, 2017), and “United Nations Environment Assembly” (December 19, 2017). Heavy criticism of West is a constant theme. Issues include the supposition that the presidency of Barrack Obama did not meet of Africa’s expectations and even less so from Trump’s presidency, that the West is responsible for Africa’s impoverishment, that Africa’s French colonies cannot expect much from France, and that Western countries have been stealing African artefacts, among others. The episodes include the following: “America’s Relations with Africa” (July 26, 2015), “Africa’s French connection” (December 4, 2016) “America’s change of guard” (January 21, 2017), “Trump & Africa: One year on” (February 20, 2018), “U.S.— Africa relations under Trump” (March 22, 2018), “Recovering Africa’s lost artefacts” (September 23, 2018) and “60 years of independence for Africa” (October 19, 2020). International organizations are avenues via which the talk show episodes find a way of weaving an optimistic narrative beefing up the narrative that China represents Africa in organizations such as the Group of 20 (G20) and the Brazil Russia India China and South Africa (BRICS). Public Diplomacy and Soft Power At their core, the theories, concepts, and practices of public diplomacy and soft power are about influencing and shaping favourable opinions of one country or region in another country or region. As it has accumulated power in the global sphere over the past 50 years, China has become agile in leveraging public diplomacy and soft power strategies with its media. In “China’s Youth in Africa” (April 10, 2017) and “China, Africa cultural exchanges” (April 21, 2018), we see the use of non-state actors to change perceptions about China in Africa. These episodes show Chinese youth

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breaking down cultural barriers with their African counterparts through interactions in cultural fare such as music, food, and education in a version comparable to Western youth-based public diplomacy. In a similar vein, an episode entitled “China’s scholarships to Africa” (July 26, 2020) propounds China’s image as supporting education and skills development on the continent. The episode turns geopolitical when a competitive narrative is infused, in the sense that China is today the number one provider of scholarships to African youth. High-Level Interviews A high number of exclusive shows with high-ranking African officials as guests sets CGTN Africa from other international broadcasters. In the earlier studies between 2012 and 2014, the following 14 African presidents were guests: Sudan’s Hassan Omar El-Bashir; South Sudan’s Salva Kiir Maryadit; Ghana’s John Dramani Mahama; Burundi’s Pierre Nkrunziza; Somalia’s Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud; Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta; Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan; Gabon’s Omar Bongo Odimba; Malawi’s Joyce Banda; Peter Mutharika; Seychelle’s James Michel, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. Getting presidents as guests on a Talk Show is difficult. In the case of CGTN Africa, the number of high-profile interviewees during the earlier period shoots up when personalities such as former UN secretary-general Koffi Annan, former United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, and South African cabinet minister and former African Union chairperson Dlamini Nkosazana-Zuma are included. High-ranking Chinese officials such as the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Africa and various diplomats were also guests on the show, the former appearing in the Nairobi studio during his official visits to Kenya in May 2014. In the interviews, we see an optimistic narrative on Africa-China cooperation which serve as a platform for the leaders to talk about their development plans while opposing supposed proselytizing by Western leaders. The success of CGTN Africa in securing high-level interviews is a function of the resources the broadcaster can afford. Most of the interviews are undertaken in presidential residences or at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa especially during annual leader’s conferences. Additionally, and perhaps more significantly, the other international and some African

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broadcasters have often taken a critical stance in their journalistic work, therefore, making guarded African leaders wary of appearing on their shows. Continuing High-Level Interviews In the data for the period 2012 and 2014 we see episodes that look more like interviews than debates, accordingly, framed as conversations. The sessions can be distinguished between high-level interviewees, typically presidents and prime ministers, second-level guests who are prominent personalities but not leaders of nations. The latter episodes include interviews with celebrities: “Conversation with chief Nike Okundaye, Africa’s queen of textile” (December 16, 2019), “A Conversation with Narendra Raval” (December 2, 2018), “A conversation with Wanuri Kahiu” (March 31, 2018), “A Conversation with Graça Machel” (December 28, 2017), “A conversation with Ambassador Wu Peng” (March 2, 2020). More significantly, 11 leaders were interviewed in the period between 2014 and 2021 bringing the number of high-level interviews to 25 over the decade—sizeable enough for a conclusion to be made that one of CGTN Africa’s strategies is to forge close ties with African leaders. Interviews for the 2014 to 2021 period include Rwanda’s Paul Kagame (May 14, 2015, and June 14, 2015), South Africa’s Jacob Zuma (December 14, 2015), Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang (May 28, 2016), Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh (August 31, 2016), Benin’s Patrice Talon” (December 24, 2016), Guinea’s Alpha Conde (July 19, 2017), Morocco’s Prime Minister Saad Eddine el-Othmani (Part 1)” (October 17), 2017 as the Kingdom made a comeback to the AU, Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe Patrice Trovoada” (June 24, 2018), Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika” (September 17, 2018), Union of Comoros’s Azali Assoumani” (September 3, 2019), and Danny Faure of the Seychelles (October 23, 2019). Episodes featuring presidents came to a halt in 2020 plausibly because of the COVID-19 restrictions. Another pattern discernible in the data is that some of the episodes discuss personalities indirectly. In “George Weah’s rise from Footballer to President” (January 13, 2018) the episode focuses on Weah’s election as Liberia’s president. Three episodes focus on high-level visits to Beijing: “Zimbabwe Looks East” (July 13, 2015), “President Emmerson Mnangagwa in China” (April 18, 2018) and “Nigeria’s President Buhari in China” (April 16, 2016). Another set of

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episodes focus on prominent Africans without direct interviews: “African celebrities and charity” (October 27, 2019), “World mourns renowned diplomat Kofi Annan” (August 19, 2018), “African Women Leaders” (September 17, 2016). Although celebrating former leaders Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (former president of Liberia), Joyce Banda (former president of Malawi), and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (former African Union chairperson), the latter episode is pessimistic as the paucity of women leaders is lamented.

Conclusion This chapter sought to analyse multiyear data from CGTN Africa to find out if the broadcaster has achieved the goals and objectives for which it was launched a decade ago. Several findings from the analysis can be made. An interesting one is that CGTN Africa’s Talk Africa segment has established certain journalistic and media conventions, norms, and traditions. Not discussed in the analysis above is a pattern and trend in which a yearly calendar is visible with a backward loop to the summitry theme discussed above. Between January and March, episodes are based on the World Economic Forum events in Davos at the end of January, the celebration of the Chinese New Year (which shifts in specific dates depending on the Chinese lunar calendar); the annual visit of the Chinese foreign minister to Africa, usually in late January or early to mid-February, this being an established tradition; the annual African Union heads of state summits usually in February in Addis Ababa and the so-called Chinese political season when the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress meet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Thus, the first quarter of the year is the busiest for CGTN Africa’s Talk Show journalists. Triennially, episodes discuss the Forum on China-­ Africa Cooperation conferences usually held in the last quarter of the year. In December, episodes review the developments and dynamics in a particular year and set the stage for the next year. It is also a given that CGTN Africa Talk shows will focus on high-level visits by Chinese leaders to Africa. These conventions, norms, and traditions have become so predictable that they can be expected to continue if CGTN remains in the African broadcasting business. The fact that CGTN generally and CGTN Africa has maintained a presence on the continent over the past decade shows that the goals and objectives that informed its launch have not changed much. In a nutshell, the

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Chinese party-state will continue bankrolling the operations of CGTN Africa as part of constructing and maintaining a narrative favourable to its presence in Africa. The evidently massive investment in CGTN’s operations is with an eye on persuading Africans and therefore a need to revisit the public diplomacy and soft power theorising which has become a growth industry but from a geopolitical perspective. Indeed, future studies interested in Chinese broadcasting in Africa can isolate and zero in on the geopolitical theme because it speaks to how Africa fits into Beijing’s global calculus. If one of the stated objectives of the launch of CGTN was to fashion favourable coverage of the continent against the background of Western media framing of Africa as a continent of disease, war and famine, evidence from the data reveals mixed results. While aiming to avoid Western narratives of Africa this has not been completely avoided as seen in the data on the conflict frame. Intra-state and inter-state armed conflicts for instance form a big part of Talk Africa’s debates and they are framed in pessimistic terms. Similarly, instances analyzed under the economics frame show that poverty, famines, and environmental disasters are focused on in a big and largely pessimistic fashion. This demonstrates the constraints that Chinese media face when covering essentially disturbing and problematic realities on the continent. However, there are enough episodes in the data that show a predilection to the so-called constructive journalism (see Zhang & Matingwina, 2016) where negative situations are framed as being on the mend. Indeed, some of the episodes are outright optimistic for both Africa and China, particularly the high-level interviews. Subject to further comparative analysis with other international broadcasters, we can make the cautious conclusion that CGTN Africa is more balanced in discussing African than its Western competitors. The objective of CGTN as Africa’s voice can also be upheld not just because of the volume and wide range of topics covered but also because it’s the carrier of the notion of China and Chinese leaders being Africa’s voices globally. On the surface, CGTN Africa’s objective of challenging the West can be confirmed particularly given the geopolitical episodes where there are no qualms frontally attacking the West, particularly the US. The question of influence however begs answers. The broadcast of many discussions critical of the West is one thing and the real impact of these discussions to change opinion is another thing altogether. This question can be answered in future through empirical studies that consider the audience share of

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CGTN Africa vis-a-vis its Western nemesis as well as interviews of some of the audiences. Without these kinds of studies, it remains an open question as to whether CGTN has achieved its objective of outcompeting the likes of CNN, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and France 24 in Africa.

References Banda, F. (2009). China in African Mediascape: A Critical Injection. Rhodes Journalism Review. 52/53. de Vreese, C., Peter, J., & Semetko, H. (2001). Framing Politics at the Launch of the Euro: A Cross-National Comparative Study of Frames in the News. Political Communication, 18(2), 107–122. Gagliardone, I. (2013). China as a Persuader: CCTV Africa’s First Steps in the African Mediasphere. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 34(3), 25–50. Hu, Z., & Ji, D. (2012). Ambiguities in Communicating with the World: The “Going-Out” Policy of China’s Media and Its Multilayered Contexts. Chinese Journal of Communication, 5(1), 32–37. Kumar, R. (2021). How China Uses the News Media as a Weapon in Its Propaganda War Against the West, Reuters Institute and University of Oxford. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-­china-­uses-­newsmedia-­weapon-­its-­propaganda-­war-­against-­west Liang, Z. (2010). Neo-Colonialism, Ideology or Just Business? China’s Perceptions of Africa. Global Media and Communication, 6, 271. Lim, L., & Bergin, J. (2018). Inside China’s Audacious Global Propaganda Campaign. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/ n e w s / 2 0 1 8 / d e c / 0 7 / c h i n a -­p l a n -­f o r-­g l o b a l -­m e d i a -­d o m i n a n c e propaganda-­xi-­jinping Lye, L.  F., & Chong S. K. C. (2010). China’s Media Initiatives and Its International Media Building. EAI Background Brief, No. 55. Nelson, A. (2013). CCTV’s International Expansion: China’s Grand Strategy for Media? Report for Center for International Media Assistance/National Endowment for Democracy. Center for International Media Assistance/National Endowment for Democracy. Pan, Z., & Kociski, G. (1993). Framing Analysis: An Approach to News Discourse. Political Communication, 1(10), 55–75. Reese, S. (2001). Prologue: Framing Public Life: A Bridging Model for Media Research. In S.  Reese, O.  Gandy, & A.  Grant (Eds.), Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World (pp. 7–31). Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Shubo, L., & Ronning, H. (2013). Half-Orchestrated, Half Freestyle: Soft Power and Reporting Africa in China. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 34(3), 102–124. Wekesa, B. (2013a). Media Framing of China’s Image in East Africa: An Exploratory Study. African East-Asian Affairs: The China Monitor, 1, 15–41. Wekesa, B. (2013b). Emerging Trends and Patterns in China-Africa Media Dynamics: A Discussion from an East African Perspective. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 34(3), 62–78. Wekesa, B. (2014, September). An Analysis of China Central Television’s Talk Africa Debate Show. Paper Presented at the International Conference China and Africa Media, Communications and Public Diplomacy, Chr. Michelsen Institute/Kede College of Capital Normal University, Beijing, 10–11. Wekesa, B. (2020). Africa-China and Media Communications: Perceptions, Ideology and Diplomacy. In P.  Z. Tembe & V.  Gumede (Eds.), Culture, Identities and Ideologies in Africa-China Cooperation (pp.  271–296). Africa World Press. Wekesa, B., & Zhang, Y. (2014). Live, Talk, Faces: An Analysis of CCTV’s Adaption to the African Media Market. Discussion Paper, 2/2014, Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University. Wimmer, R., & Dominick, J. (2000). Mass Media Research: An Introduction (6th ed.). Wadsworth Publishing Company. Wu, Y. (2012). The Rise of China’s State-Led Media Dynasty in Africa. Occasional Paper No. 117. China–Africa Project. South African Institute of International Affairs. Xin, X. (2009). Xinhua News Agency in Africa. Journal of African Media Studies, 1(3), 363–377. Zhang, X. (2013). How Ready is China for a China-Style World Order? China’s State Media Discourse Under Construction. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 34(3), 79–101. Zhang, Y., & Matingwina, S. (2016). Constructive Journalism: A New Journalistic Paradigm of Chinese Media in Africa. In X. Zhang, H. Wasserman, & W. Mano (Eds.), China’s Media and Soft Power in Africa (pp.  93–105). Palgrave Macmillan.

PART III

Television Policy and Regulation in the Digital Age

CHAPTER 8

The Past and Future of Media Giants in Latin America: The Legacy of Clientelism in Brazil’s Broadcast Television Development Elizabeth A. Stein and Karine Belarmino

Introduction In this chapter, we argue that the cronyism that defined the early distribution of broadcast licenses reinforced the symbiotic relationships between local elites and the federal government and, in turn, left an enduring legacy in today’s media landscape. Furthermore, the interdependence of media owners and politicians that continues in some regions in Brazil threatens the quality of democracy by inhibiting the media’s role in holding elected officials to account. Brazilian politicians strategically used public resources as carrots to incentivize media organizations to produce favourable coverage;

E. A. Stein (*) Department of Government, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Belarmino Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_8

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conversely, the threat to withdraw or redirect these resources functioned as the stick used to stifle negative coverage. For example, the government employed ample “state advertising budgets, generous loans from official banks, the facilitation of the purchase of equipment and a variety of political favours”1 to support a large part of the Brazilian press (Pieranti, 2006, 93). The emergence of broadcast television in the 1950s provided politicians with a valuable new public resource—broadcast frequency concessions—to finance their clientelist transactions. At the time that television supplanted radio as the dominant medium for news and entertainment, the Brazilian military governed the country. The military regime envisioned a strategic alliance with broadcast media organizations that would propagate the regimes’ doctrine throughout the country. With this aim in mind, the military invested heavily in broadening the reach of nascent broadcast media. Military leaders used their control of the licensing process as part of their clientelist toolbox to foster the growth of national media empires that would treat the regime favourably. Roberto Marinho, the owner of the Globo media group had demonstrated his sympathy for the regime’s doctrine in the editorials and front-page headlines of its flagship publication, O Globo, one of the country’s leading newspaper. As Globo grew with the financial and policy support of the military government, Globo strengthened its power vis-à-vis the regime. The military regime needed the backing or acquiescence of local political bosses to maintain their grip on power. During the years of military rule from 1964 to 1985, the regime rewarded business elites and loyal politicians from the senate floor to the governors’ mansions with broadcast concessions. The politicians who gained new media holdings through these concessions were able to use the media to sustain their political careers, often extending these benefits to other family members as well. Politicians could use their television network to entrench their hold on power in a particular geographic domain (Pieroni & Zapani, 2016; Herrmann, 2017). Even after the military returned to the barracks in 1985, the subsequent civilian governments perpetuated the clientelist practices around authorizing broadcast concessions; they recognized the value of the concession process for building political capital. The allocation of broadcast concessions served as mutually beneficial transactions between a state’s politicians and local elites. As television expanded its reach throughout Brazil, powerful industrialists and agribusiness tycoons frequently held public office and also were the beneficiaries of broadcast concessions.

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Thus, the development of television in Brazil helped to spawn and further empower regional media barons, while also reinforcing the oligarchic nature of state-level politics. In the next section, we summarize the historical development of broadcast television in Brazil, emphasizing the development of a phenomenon referred to as coronelismo eletronico.2 We detail the media-state collusion that ultimately curtailed media competition and helped to establish the Globo Organization as the dominant player in the broadcast media market. We then discuss how the clientelist practices that governed media concessions helped perpetuate the dominance of political dynasties in some states, where entrenched political families may themselves own the media and also have large stakes in regional industries. We highlight how media organizations and the families that owned them gained an extra boost if they won a prized affiliation with the Globo Network (See Table 8.2). Subsequently, we discuss how the evolution of broadcast communication regulation did little to curtail the deep roots of these powerful families. Lastly, we address how the changing nature of people consume television programming has led to a decline in Globo’s broadcast audience, but has not seemed to diminish the company’s overall power, as it and other dominant national networks turned to pay-television services and the internet. We conclude by summarizing our findings and speculating on the future of television in Brazil.

Broadcast Media Development in Brazil The Birth of Television in Brazil and Rise of Rede Globo The earliest broadcast television networks in Brazil arose from established media organizations that built their reputations through their print and radio outlets. Diários Associados, a media conglomerate established in 1924 by the journalist-turned-businessman Francisco de Assis Chateaubriand, established Brazil’s first television network, TV Tupi, in September 1950, headquartered in São Paulo. The following year, Diários Associados expanded its operations, with its second television network, TV Tupi Rio de Janeiro. In the first decade of television, the market expanded from the financial and political centers of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, respectively, to capital cities throughout the country. TV Paulista owned by Deputy Oswaldo Ortiz Monteiro presented the first competition to TV Tupi going on air in 1952. By 1955, Victor Costa,

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the director of Radio Nacional, who had founded his own media group, Organizações Victor Costa (OVC), acquired the television network from Deputy Monteiro. The third major player in the early days of broadcast television was the media entrepreneur Paulo Machado de Carvalho, who owned the radio network Radio Record. Machado de Carvalho entered the television market in 1953 with the inauguration of TV Record in São Paulo. In 1955, Machado de Carvalho’s brother-in-law, João Batista “Pipa” do Amaral founded TV Rio, and the two men formed the association Emissoras Unidas to compete with the Tupi network. Later Edir Macedo, the head of the evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, would acquire the Record network. As Brazil moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro on the coast to Brasília in the country’s less-populated interior, the television market grew in numbers and expanded its geographic reach as well. The growth of the industry prompted new legislation that established a regulatory framework. The initial bill that established the Brazilian Telecommunications Code—Law 4.117—became law on August 27, 1962 during the presidency of João Goulart (see Table 8.1 in the Appendix for a timeline and detailed summary of key legislation that established and revised the regulatory structure of broadcast television). The following year, Decree 52.795 (October 31, 1963) detailed the power of the Executive to grant concessions for broadcast frequencies. It set the term for radio concessions at 10 years and television concessions at 15 years. The recipients of broadcast concessions would be allowed to request their renewal, which the executive power could authorize for successive terms of equal length.3 Nevertheless, television remained out of reach for most people. In 1960, there were fewer than two television sets per 100 people.4 On March 31, 1964, Brazil’s military initiated a coup d’état against then-President João Goulart, whose leftist inclinations had unnerved the wealthy elite, including many of the owners of Brazil’s largest media enterprises. Several of Brazil’s largest daily newspapers, including Jornal do Brasil, Correio da Manhã, O Globo, Folha de São Paulo and O Estado de São Paulo, published editorials calling on the military to intervene (Skidmore, 1988, 27). After taking power, the regime allowed the 1965 gubernatorial elections to proceed. When candidates from the parties allied with the military lost races in two of Brazil’s most powerful states, the hardline faction within the regime supported extending the military’s reign and increasing the military’s authority (Alves 198, 60–61). The importance of controlling the media grew in importance.

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The military regime strongly influenced the subsequent development of the broadcast television landscape. It invested heavily in expanding infrastructure to support broadcast television on the basis that it was in Brazil’s national security interest (Pieranti, 2006, 96). Recognizing the value of managing the growth of the industry and establishing the regime’s authority to regulate it, the regime created a Ministry of Communications during the first presidency under military rule (Pieranti, 2006, 99). The regime also began to issue decrees that radically restricted the independence and autonomy of media organizations. In February 1967, the military regime issued Decree-Law 236 that gave the government increased power and oversight over broadcast communications. It gave the government authority to punish media outlets if they published or broadcast content that violated the moral foundation of the military-proclaimed “revolution” (Pieranti, 2006, 97). To further gain control of information throughout the country, the military regime increased the number of concessions it granted. Under regulations that promoted educational and cultural broadcasts, between 1967 and 1974, the government granted concessions for nine new networks, the majority of which were associated with state-level Ministries of Education or Culture (Pieranti, 2006, 98). Private owners also gained concessions at this time. For example, in 1967, the government granted João Jorge Saad a concession for a channel in São Paulo that was the seedling of Rede Bandeirante, which remains one of the five major networks with national reach today. The military-regime navigated the media minefield by backing friendly outlets with subsidies, tax breaks and state advertising revenue, while it used various measures to repress or financially strangle any media organization that dared to oppose the regime. Many media outlets were vulnerable to the regime’s pressure because of their heavy reliance on the steady revenue stream of state advertising. Some networks failed under the pressures of censorship and financial loss, such as TV Rio and TV Excelsior (Pieranti, 2006, 102–103). The military outright cancelled the broadcast concessions of others, including the various subsidiary stations of TV Tupi, which ceased to exist in 1980 (Pieranti, 2006, 104). In contrast, the primary beneficiary of the military as benefactor was the newly established Globo Network (Rede Globo), owned by Roberto Marinho. The regime subsidized the meteoric growth of Marinho’s media enterprise, which strongly supported the regime until the public criticized Globo’s initial

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refusal to cover the mass opposition movement, Diretas Já,5 that campaigned in the streets for direct presidential elections in 1985. In 1962, Marinho had made a deal with the U.S.-owned company Time-Life to help with the technical aspects of setting up a modern television network. Competitors claimed that the Globo deal violated restrictions on foreign investment in broadcast enterprises laid out in the 1962 legislation that established the Brazilian Telecommunications Code. The state bank provided low-interest loans to help TV Globo buy Time-Life out of the deal (Straubhaar, 1989, 141). From its inception in Rio de Janeiro in 1965–1974, Rede Globo grew its network, gaining concessions for stations in São Paulo, Brasília, Belo Horizonte and Recife. It further developed an extraordinary network of affiliate stations controlled by key regional media organizations that frequently had strong ties with low political bosses. With the assistance of the military regime, TV Globo established itself as the industry leader. Today the Globo organization has both vertical and horizontal breadth. It produces and distributes most of its content and owns media across mediums and platforms, including cable TV and internet portals. Joseph Straubhaar, a professor of communications who studies Brazil, notes TV Globo has achieved a remarkable degree of horizontal integration into other industries … TV Globo also has its own vertical integration and controls all aspects of TV production, research, and marketing, an arrangement that endows it with significant economic power. Moreover, TV Globo dominates both audience ratings and the consequent advertising income. (Straubhaar 1989, 142–143)

Straubhaur points out how TV Globo’s success translated to increased political power relative to the state. Perhaps to counterbalance this power, in 1979 and 1980, the military government helped to create two new networks: TV Manchete, owned by Adlofo Bloch, who owned the popular magazine Manchete, and the Sistema Brasileira de Televisão (SBT), owned by Silvio Santos (Straubhaar, 1989). The regime allocated the broadcast concessions that previously belonged to TV Tupi to the two newcomers. Reflecting on the government’s interest in generating competition for the Globo network, Straubhauer opined that it appeared that “despite TV Globo’s reputed loyalty to regimes in power since 1964, government

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officials began to feel uneasy about the degree of power that TV Globo had accumulated over the Brazilian viewing audience” (1989, 142). In 1985, the Brazilian military ceded power to a civilian government led by José Sarney, who an Electoral College (EC) had elected as vice president on the ticket of the Democratic Alliance along with Tancredo Neves, the Alliance’s presidential candidate. The Neves-Sarney ticket emerged as a compromise among the political parties that had formed the new alliance. Neves represented the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), the successor party of the sanctioned opposition party during most of the period of military rule. The opposition held a slight majority in the Chamber of Deputies and thus Brazil’s Electoral College. Sarney, on the other hand, had been a member of the military-­ aligned ruling party, known as the National Renewal Alliance (ARENA) that became the Democratic Social Party (PDS) in 1979. Sarney objected to the candidate that the PDS backed in the 1985 indirect elections. As a result, he defected, founding the Party of the Liberal Front (PFL) that allied with the PMDB. Neves died of natural causes before taking office, paving the way for Sarney’s presidency. At the time he assumed the presidency, José Sarney had been in politics for more than 30 years. Coming from the Northeast, a region dominated by political bosses and machine politics, Sarney had been raised, politically speaking, on clientelist exchanges. Octavio Penna Pieranti explained in his article on policies for the media in Brazil that at the time of the transition “the old practices, like censorship soon would be abolished; others, however, like the political distribution of concessions to broadcast enterprises now only would be maintained but also amplified” (2006, 106). Sarney’s choice for his Minister of Communication, Antônio Carlos Magalhães (known by his initials ACM), another entrenched politician from the Northeast, presaged the pending developments in broadcast communication. First, as Minister of Communication, ACM canceled 144 of the 634 concessions for radio and television that the military regime already had authorized. The targets for cancelations primarily were concessions made to members of parliament who remained faithful to the military government. In turn, from 1985 to 1988, Sarney’s administration granted more than 1000 new concessions (Pieranti, 2006, p 107). The broadcast concessions helped to strengthen the power of local political elites, who already held significant power in their domains.

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The Origins of the “Coronel Eletrônico”: Subnational Media and Politics In Brazil, the phenomenon of politicians amassing regional media conglomerates that include broadcast media while simultaneously developing familial political dynasties is so pervasive that scholars have adopted the term coronel eletrônico [electronic colonel in English] to describe a member of such a political family. These types of politicians survive and thrive based on the strength of their clientelist network. According to a 2013 report by Reporters without Borders, “a ‘colonel’ in the present-day Brazilian sense of the term is a big landowner or industrialist who may also be a state governor or parliamentarian and who often also has a say in opinion-making in his part of Brazil thanks to ownership of several news media” (Hervieu, 2013, 6). According to Daniel Hallin and Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, both professors of media and communication, clientelism persists in countries where principles of liberal democracy clash with legacies of authoritarian rule (2002). According to one study of subnational media and political control, some Brazilian states never fully democratized because politicians who owned the media were able to exclude specific groups (i.e. opposition candidates) from access to popular media (Herrmann, 2017). When politicians control the media, they tilt the electoral playing field to the advantage of the incumbent to such a degree as to question the fairness of the democratic process. When this occurs at the national level, scholars have described these countries as having competitive authoritarian regimes (Levitsky & Way, 2002). Competitive authoritarian regimes maintain the façade of democratic procedures including multiparty elections, while consolidating power in the incumbent. Scholars who study competitive authoritarianism mention control of the media as part of the pseudo-­ democrat’s toolkit to control election outcomes and sustain popular support (Bieber, 2018; Cho et al., 2017; Levitsky & Way, 2002; Way, 2004). In Brazil, the phenomenon of coronelismo eletrônico erases the line between the media and politicians. It does not take a major leap of faith to assume politicians who obtain media outlets do so in part because it offers them an avenue to reach likely voters and control the coverage of their campaign. Likewise, media owners who decide to run for office probably do so because they recognize the advantages their position atop a media enterprise provides.

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Geraldo Pieroni and André Kron Marques Zapani (2016) analyzed the Brazilian media landscape, focusing in particular on the state of Paraná in the Southern region. The authors’ objective was to understand the importance of the concentration of power that results from the convergence of political power with media power. The authors describe the contemporary model of clientelism associated with “coronelismo eletrônico,” noting that the modern colonels: seek to cling to their broadcast license more and more and aim to acquire other communication platforms in order to concentrate information as well as qualify their programming in order to retain their audiences, maintain their advertising revenues and spread their political ideology. The currency of exchange of this communication system is the vote of the rural electorate linked to the colonels via media-driven motivation in favor of the allied politician who, in turn, facilitates the granting and future renewal of concessions of the broadcasting service for the electronic colonel as well as publicity support in the budget of the [politician authorizing the concession]. Electronic “coronelismo” … is the maintenance of the traditional political elites, it is the alliance between the private party and the holders of the radio concessions. (Pieroni & Zapani, 2016, 250)

Pieroni and Zapani (2016) cited a 2015 study by James Görgen that tallied the number of politicians, including senators, governors, mayors, and state and federal deputies, who were directors or partners of communication vehicles (through the terms ending in December 2010). Görgen found 271 politicians associated with 324 media outlets across Brazil’s 26 states and its Federal District. The quantity of politicians who owned the media ranged from just one in the less populated states of Acre and Tocantins to as many as 38 politicians in the more populated state of Minas Gerais (Görgen, 2015 cited in Pieroni & Zapani, 2016, 252). The subnational level of media ownership in Brazil lays bare the legacy of clientelist practices in the formation of Brazil’s media system. Journalist Luís Eduardo Gomes describes a study carried out by Pâmela Araujo Pinto, a professor of communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in which she presents Jader Barbalho, a senator for the Northern state of Pará, as the archetype of a coronel eletrônico. Araujo Pinto noted that Senator Barbalho’s family spread political propaganda on his behalf via the family’s broadcast holdings (Gomes, 2017). Using their broadcast network, which the government authorized them to operate through a

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concession of a public good—the national airwaves—for this purpose would constitute an abuse of power, at the very least. Gomes summarized the findings of Araujo Pinto’s comparison of regional media groups in the North and South of Brazil in which she found the phenomenon of politicians owning media outlets pervasive, but noted a key difference. According to Gomes, Araujo Pinto observe that in the North and Northeast politicians that hold higher level offices, such as federal deputy, senator or governor tend to own and operate television networks that are affiliates of one of the national television networks. In contrast, in the Southern states the politicians who own media tend to own smaller outlets focused on local content and tend to hold lower-level offices, such as mayor or city council member (Gomes, 2017). Many politicians who have received broadcast licenses, particularly in the North and Northeast, continue this tradition of machine politics. Through their ownership of media, they enjoy the added currency from their influence over media coverage and, indirectly, public opinion that they gain from their media ownership. Journalist Luís Eduardo Gomes describes an “umbilical relationship” between regional power brokers and the media meant to hold them accountable: “A politician receives a broadcast license. From there, he participates in a select group of regional media owners. With this, he builds an electoral monopoly that will perpetuate his name and family as a political oligarchy and, consequently, expand his power over the media” (Gomes, 2017, first paragraph). When José Sarney became president in 1985, forming Brazil’s first civilian government since the 1964 military coup, the Ministry of Communication, which controlled the allocation of broadcast licenses, became a hub of clientelism. Sarney appointed then-Senator Antônio Carlos Magalhães as the Minister of Communication, who cultivated and rewarded political allies by granting them concessions for affiliate networks in their home states. ACM even granted himself a license for the state of Bahia. In the late 1980s, while the newly elected Congress worked on writing a new constitution, José Sarney pushed for a longer term. He argued that he would be in a better position to negotiate with international financial institutions, which was necessary to extract Brazil from a major economic crisis (Graham, 1987). ACM’s transactional alliances likely ensured that Sarney got a 5th year. ACM had doled out licenses to many politicians, particularly senators and deputies who ultimately voted to extend then-President José Sarney’s term (Boas & Hidalgo, 2011; Porto, 2003).

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The exchange of broadcast licenses for political favors persisted into the new democratic period, even under presidents not perceived as driven by clientelism. During his administration, Fernando Henrique Cardoso—the president responsible for Decree 1.720/1995, which established more stringent requirements for entities applying for concessions and also restricted the number of concessions by type—took advantage of a loophole in the legislation that allowed the Minister of Communications to authorize a concession for a station designated as a “retransmitter” (RTV) without the recipient having to go through the same rigorous process. Counter to their name, retransmitters did not all just retransmit another network’s content; they could air up to 15 percent original content if they met particular criteria, which turned these concessions into political currency (de Carvalho Bayma, 2001, 143; Pieranti, 2006, 108). Several studies implied that the RTV concessions likely helped Cardoso to “purchase” the right to run for a second consecutive term, which was prohibited in the 1988 constitution. Cardoso’s Minister of Communications distributed an ample number of RTV concessions, authorizing many former and active politicians to own media companies. A large number of these concessions were set to become active in December 1996, just a month prior to a Congressional vote on a constitutional amendment that would ultimately remove the single-term limit. The amendment passed and Cardoso won a second term.  olitical Dynasties and the Media Oligopolies P In every Brazilian state, some politicians own media outlets, ranging from mayors and city council members to governors, federal deputies and senators. The combination is so pervasive that Eugênio Buccio, a university professor in São Paulo and a columnist described the state of media ownership in Brazil, referencing Italy’s former prime minister and media baron, Sílvio Berlusconi, saying, “We have tens of Berlusconis, maybe more than 30 Berlusconis” (Hervieu, 2013, 6). Buccio’s assessment did not exaggerate the situation; in December 2015, the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) with the support of the media watchdog NGO Intervozes put forth a petition to the Supreme Court for the Breach of Fundamental Precept with a request for preliminary measures (ADPF 379) to be taken against 40 members of Congress who were listed as partners of broadcast companies, alleging it violated Articles 54 I and 54 II of the Constitution (Rover, 2015). The list of politicians included in the petition only used names of those legislators whose names continued to be

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listed as owners or partners on broadcasting licenses. It did not take into account the large number of politicians who benefit from media holdings registered in someone else’s name—people referred to by the slang term laranja. Though politicians owning media is not unique to any region, the extent of political dominance stands out in several states in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil, including: Alagoas, Amapá, Bahía, Ceará, Maranhão, Pará, and Rio Grande do Norte (Fig. 8.1).6 Typifying this regional tendency, Former President José Sarney and the now-deceased Antônio Carlos Magalhães and their respective families epitomize the modern coronel eletrônico, coming from the Northeastern states of Maranhão and Bahia, respectively. The two are hardly unique. The family of former President Fernando Collor de Mello, for example, also owns a major media conglomerate that includes print, radio and television outlets in the state of Alagoas, the state he currently represents in the Senate. The Sarney, Magalhães and Collor de Melo families have each built a media empire that dominates media coverage in their respective

Fig. 8.1  The States of the North and Northeast Regions of Brazil in Which Politicians Who Own the Media are Prevalent

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states: Grupo Mirante in Maranhão, the eponymously named Rede Bahia, and the Gazeta media holdings of the Arnon de Mello Organization in Alagoas. José Sarney’s political dynasty includes himself and two of his three children, who have held nearly every elected position available at the state and federal level, dominating state politics from 1955 to 2019. Prior to becoming president, José Sarney was elected to Congress as a federal deputy (1955–1966); governor (1966–1970) and senator of Maranhão (1971–1985). After completing his presidential term, Sarney again returned to the Senate, though he represented Amapá (1991–2015), a state that borders Maranhão. Two of his three children, José Sarney Filho7 and Roseana Sarney Murad, also held multiple elected offices for their home state of Maranhão. His daughter, Roseana, was a federal deputy (1991–1994), senator (2003–2009), and a multi-term governor (1995–2002 and 2009–2014). His son, José Sarney Filho, served as a state deputy (1979–1983) and then a federal deputy (1983–2019). Sarney Filho also served as the Minister of the Environment under two presidents. The Sarneys’ media holdings, through their media conglomerate Grupo Mirante, include both AM and FM radio networks, the newspaper O Estado do Maranhão, and TV Mirante, which includes stations in four cities in Maranhão. TV Mirante initially was an affiliate of the SBT network from its founding in 1987—when José Sarney still was the acting president—to 1990. In 1991, TV Mirante became an affiliate for the Globo network. Antônio Carlos Magalhães entered politics in 1967 as mayor of Salvador, the capital of Bahia, the most populous state in the Northeast of Brazil. In a case study of Bahia, Julián Durazo Hermann (2014, 2017) describes the state as an enclave of authoritarianism in Brazil, which he attributes in part to the political dynasty of the Magalhães family and their ownership of one of the state’s largest media conglomerates with the largest TV network in the Northeast. Antônio Carlos Magalhães led the Magalhães dynasty until his passing in 2007. His two sons, Antônio Carlos Júnior and Luís Eduardo; his nephew Paulo Magalhães, and his grandson Antônio Carlos Peixoto de Magalhães Neto, all have held or continue to hold elected positions for the state of Bahia. Like the Sarneys, the Magalhães family also rules its fiefdom through the media as well. The Magalhães family have a majority stake in Rede Bahia. The Bahian media conglomerate includes six stations throughout the state, all Globo affiliates since 1987, several radio networks and Salvador’s main newspaper, Correio da Bahia. Hermann

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explains that a “subnational authoritarian elite can use its power to combine public broadcasting and private media ownership to substantially limit information availability in its territory” (Herrmann, 2014, 25). Vaclav Stetka’s study adds that when media ownership is not the primary enterprise of their owners, as is often the case with politicians who own media outlets, the likelihood owners interfere in editorial content increases (Stetka, 2012). Establishing whether media ownership is, in fact, behind the perpetuation of these political dynasties extends beyond the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, the large number of politicians who continue to own media outlets, even at a time when media ownership is not necessarily profitable may be indicative of politicians’ own beliefs in the electoral power of media ownership.

The Challenge to the Quality of Democracy People who study or monitor media’s role in democracies generally perceive government influence over news organizations as the primary threat to democratic accountability. Joseph Stiglitz, the former chief economist at the World Bank, describes the media as playing “a critical role in our society’s system of checks and balances partly by attempting to ‘regulate’ behavior by watching to see whether government, business and other organizations are engaging in actions that are consonant with societal beliefs” (2017, 9). Scholars who study the media in Latin America, however, raise the concern that media owners throughout the region historically have supported or collaborated with government opponents to undermine democratically elected officials in order to advance the media owners’ own personal interests. When major media outlets observably work against the interests of a large portion of the population, they weaken popular faith in the media as a democratic actor. In this regard, Brazil is no different than its neighbors; Brazilian media owners’ collaboration with anti-democratic forces dates back at least to the military dictatorship, when many conservative media outlets advocated for the military coup in 1964, which initiated a 21-year period of military rule (Skidmore, 1988). The development of Brazil’s media market—one that reflects patterns throughout many countries in Latin America—welds the interests of the media and politicians, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Though formally independent, many media organizations throughout Brazil, particularly

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among regional media, function as faithful allies to the local political elite either because they depend on public expenditures for their financial survival or because media owners and editors have literal family ties to local politicians. When newsrooms are beholden to their owners’ corporate or ideological interests or subject to various forms of political influence or direct government oversight, the media cannot serve their role as an accountability actor. Thus, the media-state relations that exist in much of Brazil threaten the health of democracy by impeding the media’s role in the practices that sustain democratic accountability. Political communications specialists in Brazil have raised the concern that mainstream media in Brazil do not function as the citizens’ watchdog. According to theses scholars, Brazil’s national media organizations—TV Globo in particular—use their influence over politicians’ careers and their ability to shape public perception to “correct” popular political preferences to fit the interests of media owners (de Albuquerque, 2018). For example, scholars have asserted that Globo perversely shaped the public discourse around Dilma Rousseff’s presidency, providing coverage biased against her and the Workers Party (PT). This negative news coverage paved the way for her impeachment in 2016, negating the popular vote cast just a year and a half earlier (van Dijk, 2017). During this time, people who opposed Rousseff’s impeachment—which they referred to as a parliamentary coup—nicknamed the Globo media organization the Partido de Imprensa Golpista (PIG) [akin to the Party of the Coup-supporting Press], framing the media organization as politically motivated, on par with political parties in the legislature that voted to impeach her (van Dijk, 2017).

The Media Market in Brazil and Future Challenges In a competitive media market, we expect to find some diversity in news coverage. In comparison to many of its neighbors, Brazil has several national news networks. The five most powerful broadcast networks include the Globo network owned by the Marinho family; Silvio Santos’s SBT network; TV Record, which is owned by Edir Macedo, who also leads the evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God; TV Bandeirantes, which is owned by the Saad Family; and RedeTv! Which is owned by Amilcare Dallevo Júnior and Marcelo de Carvalho in a 70:30 split. The number of outlets, however, may be a bit misleading, given Globo’s historic dominance of audience share. In the mid-1990s, Globo’s evening news program, Jornal Nacional, averaged about 68 percent of

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active viewers, which made it the most watched news program in the world in proportion to the population (Narloch, 2005, 2nd paragraph). The diverse array of news sources theoretically diminishes the influence of any one media outlet’s political bias. The belief that competition minimizes the potentially negative effects of biased news coverage assumes that consumers seek out multiple sources that provide different perspectives. For the average citizen who has limited time and accessibility, we believe it is too demanding to expect citizens to regularly peruse a range of sources to remain well-informed. Furthermore, scholars have found substantial evidence of “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” in which we seek and receive media that confirm our previously held beliefs (Knoblock-­ Westerwick & Meng, 2009). These tendencies cast doubt that individuals actively try to broaden the perspectives presented in the news they use. Nevertheless, as competition narrows, citizens must rely on fewer sources, making them increasingly vulnerable to the persuasion of those who shape the news in the remaining sources. Globo’s dominance, though reduced, persists. In terms of television broadcasting, in every state, citizens reported watching Globo in much larger numbers than any other network. Even though overall open TV audience decreased, Globo is still the most watched TV in Brazil. Record TV is in second place, but its audience share is 20 percent smaller than Globo’s. On average, 34 percent of television sets in Brazil are tuned to Globo 24 h a day (Feltrin, 2021). Furthermore, based on the government-­sponsored survey conducted in 2015 by the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics (IBOPE), the percent who reported watching Globo in their first response ranged from a low of 50.7 percent of a state’s respondents in Amapá to a high of 83.4 percent in Tocantins. Globo owns its own channels in Brasília, Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), Recife (Pernambuco), Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In all other states, whichever conglomerate obtains the affiliate for Globo automatically moves to a position of supreme power. Notably in several states, political families that own broadcast outlets operate the Globo affiliates, including the Collor de Mello family in Alagoas, the Magalhães family in Bahia, the Queiroz (and by marriage Jereisatti) family in Ceará, the Sarney family in Maranhão, the da Silva family in Mato Grosso do Sul, the Alves Family in Rio Grande do Norte and the Albano Franco family in Sergipe. Figure 8.2 maps the owners of Globo’s affiliate networks by state. Despite the evidence of Globo’s strength, the company has not been immune to the changes imposed by the Intelligence Technology Revolution (Mounk, 2018). According to the Brazilian Institute for

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Fig. 8.2  Rede Globo Affiliates

Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2020, 79.9 percent of Brazilians (approximately 211 million people) have access to the internet; this includes people who exclusively access the internet on their mobile phones or tablets (Benício, 2020, 1st paragraph). Most Brazilians have not replaced their television set with a computer or portable device. Survey data from IBOPE indicate that 97 percent of Brazilian households have at least one TV set (Benício, 2020, 3rd paragraph). Figure 8.3 shows the percent of the population in Brazil who use the Internet, based on data from the World Bank World Development Indicators, comparing the trend in Brazil from 1993 to 2018 to the mean for the Latin American countries located in South America, excluding Brazil, as well as the mean for the three other countries that consistently comprise the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile and Uruguay (WorldBank 2020). While Brazil lags behind its neighbors to the south, it has outpaced the other countries in South America. Even with growing access to the internet, its unlikely to displace television in the short-run because in 2020 58 percent of Brazilians accessed the internet exclusively through their smartphones and 20 million households were “digitally excluded,” according to a survey by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br). The Covid-19 Pandemic vividly highlighted this digital divide when schools and work moved online (Mari, 2020).’ Culturally speaking, network television shows and news programs largely set the agenda for social media conversations (Benício, 2020). Furthermore,

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Fig. 8.3  Percent of Population Using the Internet, Brazil in Comparative Perspective, 1993–2018

while people in Brazil have not abandoned television in large numbers, Globo has made inroads in new media formats. The company has developed its own streaming service, GloboPlay, that had 30 million subscribers8 as of January 15, 2021 according to the companies reported numbers (Globo, 2021, accessed through Statista) compared to Netflix’s 17.9 million subscribers in Brazil in the first quarter of 2021 (Moody, 2021), producing its own journalistic and entertainment content. Figure 8.4 shows the number of broadband subscriptions per 100 people in Brazil from 2000 to 2018, using data from the World Bank World Development Indicators, comparing the country’s trend to the mean for the Southern Cone and the mean for South America (WorldBank 2020), as in Fig.  8.3 Brazil lags substantially behind the Southern Cone average, tracking very closely with the mean for the South American countries. The lack of broadband capacity likely limits people’s willingness to “cut the cord”. Again, the pandemic illustrated the limits of Brazil’s digital capacity. In March 2020, GloboPlay announced it would decrease the quality of its streaming videos to meet the increased demand that arose due to the quarantine (Andrion, 2020). Globo online dominates the Brazilian internet news business, with the news portal G1 and the newspaper’s website Globo.com that offer content covering the whole national territory. GloboNews Online, including

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Fig. 8.4  Broadband Subscriptions per 100 People, Brazil in Comparative Perspective, 2000–2018

G1, leads the online news outlets in weekly users and frequent users (those who access the site three or more times per week). More than half of Brazilians (51%) reported accessing the site at least once a week; 38 percent reported more frequent use (Newman et  al., 2020). Most of the major TV affiliates that comprise the extended network maintain the news portal G1 in their area. For example, TV Gazeta, owned by the Arnon de Mello Organization, owns the G1 Alagoas portal. The main websites use content from their TV affiliates’ reporters. This means that despite these structural technological changes, the legacy of “coronelismo eletrônico” extends to the Brazilian digital media system.

Conclusion In this chapter, we argued that the introduction of broadcast television in Brazil offered politicians a new form of political currency—the allocation of television broadcast concessions, which politicians exploited to build and sustain a base of support in their home states. Politicians used broadcast concessions as the seed to cultivate clientelist relations with oligarchs who dominated their state’s industry or agribusiness. These symbiotic relationships further empowered a region’s elite families, while also helping the politicians to entrench their political careers and those of relatives

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who also held political office. In some cases, politicians awarded broadcast licenses to members of their families or even to themselves, further consolidating their power and eroding mechanisms of democratic accountability. The legacy of the process of broadcast television’s development in Brazil persists in the oligopolistic nature of the country’s contemporary media system; at the national level, broadcast media ownership is concentrated among five privately held media conglomerates, while at the state level, even fewer families own affiliate stations, especially in states throughout Brazil’s North and Northeast regions. Television still dominates the media landscape in Brazil, though it has ceded some of its influence to new information and communication technologies. Nevertheless, even as the media industry adapts to the revolutionary changes in how people consume news and other programming, the power players generally remain the same. For example, the Globo Group— the largest media conglomerate in Brazil—has holdings across all mediums, including the internet and content streaming. Owning a Globo affiliate station along with the rights to Globo’s regional news portal, G1, rewards regional media owners with substantial currency—both literally and figuratively. Several of Globo’s affiliate stations belong to media companies owned by political families who use this currency to sustain their clientelist networks in order to entrench the political careers of several family members. The concentrated ownership of Brazilian media and the fact that many political families benefitted from the clientelist practices around granting television broadcast concessions have diminished the role Brazilian media can play in democratic accountability. This is especially problematic in states where the media are fused to political power through the phenomenon of the coronel eletrônico. Where media are not independent of the politicians who own them, the media do not reliably serve as the citizens’ watchdog. As a result, citizens are less able to hold their elected representatives to account, eroding the quality of democracy. Acknowledgments  We offer our gratitude to Cristiano Lopes Aguiar, a legislative consultant for Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies for his collaboration. He assisted us with Table 8.1 in the Appendix that details legislation regulating broadcast media. Some of the initial data collection on media ownership was funded by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) and Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, where Elizabeth A. Stein was the inaugural Mark Helmke Postdoctoral Fellow on Global Media, Development and Democracy. CIMA also funded Karine Belarmino’s participation in the project.

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Appendix Table 8.1  Timeline of Brazilian legislation creating and reforming Brazil’s regulatory structure for televisiona. 1962 Legislation: Law 4.117/1962b

Date signed: August 27, 1962

Establishes the Brazilian Telecommunications Code [Código Brasileiro de Telecomunicações (CBT)]. Key Points: The CBT establishes that the President of the Republic has the prerogative to grant broadcast concessions or authorization after hearing from the National Telecommunications Council [Conselho de Telecomunicações Nacionais (CONTEL)] on the proposals. Article 38 further describes the process for granting broadcast concessions and authorizations for the execution of broadcasting services, spelling out some requirements and restrictions: a. Directors and managers must be native Brazilians; technicians in charge of the operation or transmission of the broadcast signal must be either Brazilians or foreigners holding permanent residency in Brazil. Under exceptional circumstances, the Telecommunications Council can authorize the admission of foreign specialists to be contracted for these last functions. b. The statutes and articles of incorporation for companies granted broadcast concessions or authorizations require approval from the Government, which first must seek counsel from the National Telecommunications Council. c. Should a company wish to transfer its concession or assign quotas or shares that represent the capital stock, the company must get authorization from the Government after the National Telecommunications Council issues a pronouncement on the issue. Article 47 establishes that any broadcasting station that is owned by the Federal, State, Territorial or Municipal government or in which these entities, according to public law, hold a majority of shares are prohibited from using the network to broadcast political propaganda or to express opinions favorable or contrary to any political party, party apparatus, political representatives or candidates, as determined by electoral law. 1963 Legislation: Decree 52.795/1963c

Date signed: October 31, 1963

Establishes the Broadcasting Services Regulation. Key Points: Title 1 [Introduction], Chapter 2 [Purpose of Services] Article 2 establishes that any and all Brazilian municipalities have the right to apply for a broadcasting concession, as long as the municipality has the technical means to broadcast. Title IV [On Competence], Chapter 1 [for the grant], Article 1 (updated in Decree 7670 signed January 16, 2012) states that the President of the Republic has the responsibility to grant concessions to develop sound and image broadcasting services. Title IV [On Competence], Chapter 1 [for the grant], Article 2 (updated in Decree 7670 signed January 16, 2012) states that the Minister of State for Communications is responsible for granting concessions that confer permission or authorization to develop sound broadcasting services. Title V [On the Process for the granting of concessions and permissions], Chapter IV [On authorizations], Section 1, Article 27 states that concession and permission are valid for a 10-year period for radio broadcasting and a 15-year period for television services. Title XIII [On renewal, suspension and termination of concessions and permission], Chapter 1 [On Renewal] Article 111 declares that the terms of a concession or permission may be renewed for equal and successive periods.

(continued)

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Table 8.1 (continued) 1967 Legislation: Decree Law 236d

Date signed: February 28, 1967

Complements and modifies the Brazilian Telecommunications Code; establishes limits on the number of stations a broadcast company may own. [Note: This article needs to be interpreted in the context of the military regime’s repression of opposition and suppression of free speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, etc.] Key Points: Article 3 establishes revised language for Articles 24 to 53 of Law 4.117/1962, which instituted the Brazilian Telecommunications Code. Article 53 states that is an abuse of broadcasting freedom to use this means of communication for the commission of a crime or misdemeanor provided for in the legislation in force in the country. It specifies some specific crimes and misdemeanors, such as: a. inciting disobedience of the law or court decisions; b. disclosing state secrets or broadcasting something that harms national defense; c. offending the national honor; d. carrying out war propaganda or propaganda to subvert the political and social order; e. promoting a discriminatory campaign based on class, color, race or religion; f. inciting rebellion or encouraging indiscipline among the armed forces or public security organizations; g. compromising the country’s international relations; h. offending public family morals, or good customs; i. slandering, insulting or defaming the Legislative, Executive or Judiciary Powers or their respective members; j. broadcasting false news, with danger to public, economic and social order; and k. collaborating, fomenting or promoting rebellion, disorder or proscribed demonstrations. 1988 Constitution: 1988 Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazile

Date signed: October 5, 1988

[This is the constitution established during the period of transition from military to civilian rule, before the reintroduction of direct elections for representatives at all levels of government (i.e. mayors, city council members, governors, state and federal deputies, senators, and the president and vice president of the country).] Key Points: Title IV (Organization of the Branches), Section V (Deputies and Senators) Article 54 declares that neither deputies nor senators may, at the time the election results are certified, sign or maintain a contract or accept or hold a paid office with a public legal entity, autarchy, state-owned company, mixed capital company or public utility, unless the contract follows standard clauses. Furthermore, after deputies and senators take office, they no longer can own, control or direct a company nor may they hold a paid position in any company that benefits from a contract with a public legal entity.f Title VIII [On Social Order], Capítulo V [On Social Communication] revises the media regulation framework established prior to the adoption of the new constitutions. Article 220 re-establishes individual liberties, such as the freedom of thought, creation, speech and information.  Section 1 proscribes any law that might impede full freedom of the press in any medium of social communication.   Section 2 proscribes all forms of censorship that are political, ideological or artistic in nature.

(continued)

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Table 8.1 (continued)  Section 3 and Section 4 address the government’s responsibility to advise the public of the nature of media content and restrict the timing of the broadcast of content that is not appropriate for children; it also gives the government authority to regulate commercial advertising of particular products that are subject to legal restrictions, such as tobacco or medicines.  Section 5 states that media of social communication may not be directly or indirectly subject to a monopoly or oligopoly. Note, however, that the wording does define what constitutes an oligopoly.   Section 6 establishes that the publication of print communications does not require a license from any government authority. Article 221 states that the production and programming of radio and television stations must comply with a set of four principles. The first establishes a preference for broadcast content that has an educational, artistic, cultural or informational purpose. The second favors content that promotes national and regional culture and fosters independent production aimed at disseminating such material. The third requires content that encourages the regionalization of cultural, artistic and journalistic production, according to percentages established by law. The fourth principle mandates a respect for ethical and social values of the individual and family. Article 222 restricts ownership of enterprises that engage in journalism or broadcast sound and images with sound to native-born or naturalized Brazilians or to legal entities organized according to Brazilian law and headquartered in Brazil.  Section 1 mandates that at least 70 percent of the total capital and voting capital of such firms must be owned directly or indirectly by native-born Brazilian or those naturalized for more than 10 years; these people must manage the activities of these enterprises and determine the content.  Section 2 restricts editorial responsibility and decision-making authority with regard to programming to native-born or naturalized citizens.   Section 3 states that the principles laid out in Article 221 apply regardless of the technology used.  Section 4 calls for legal regulation of foreign capital in media enterprises (see Section 1 above). Section 5 mandates that Congress be informed of any change in the controlling shareholders of firms described in Section 1 of this article. Article 223 reasserts that the Executive has the power to grant and renew concessions, permits and authorizations for broadcasting services taking into account the complementary roles of private, public and state enterprises.  Section 1 states that Congress must consider such acts within the time period laid out for other laws in article 64 of the constitution.  Sections 2 and 3 establish that Congress now has the authority over the process of the renewal (or non-renewal) of broadcast concessions. They state that at least two-fifths of the nominal vote of Congress must approve a non-renewal of concessions  Section 4 states that the judiciary must hear and issue a ruling on any decision to cancel a broadcast concession prior to its expiration.  Section 5 maintains the terms of concessions at 10 years for radio and 15 years for television stations. Article 224 calls for the establishment of an auxiliary agency—the Social Communications Council—to carry out the above provisions. 1995 Legislation: Decree 1.720g

Date signed: November 28, 1995

This decree details the requirements that an entity seeking a broadcast concession must fulfill. It also lays out restrictions on the number of concessions a party can receive across mediums. (Decree 10.930/2022 revokes this law.)

(continued)

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Table 8.1 (continued) 1996 Legislation: Decree 2.108h

Date signed: December 24, 1996

This decree modifies the Broadcasting Services Regulation established in Decree 52.795/1963. It establishes that prior to the government granting concessions for commercial broadcast licenses, a competitive bidding process must occur. 1997 Legislation: Law 9.472i

Date Signed: July 16, 1997

This decree modifies the Broadcasting Services Regulation established in Decree 52.795/1963. It establishes that prior to the government granting concessions for commercial broadcast licenses, a competitive bidding process must occur. General Telecommunications Law [Lei Geral de Telecomunicações (LGT)] Book II [On the Regulatory Organ of Political Sectors] Title I [On the Creation of the Regulatory Organ] Article 8 of the General Telecommunications Law calls for the creation of the National Agency of Telecommunications [Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (Anatel)], as part of the Federal Public Administration, linked to the Ministry of Communications. It specifies that the agency will maintain administrative independence and financial autonomy. Book III [On the Organization of Telecommunication Services] Title 1 [General Dispositions] Chapter III [On Common Rules] Article 71 allows for Anatel to establish restrictions, limitations or set conditions on companies with regard to their ability to obtain or transfer a concession, permission or authorization to broadcast in order to ensure competition and prevent market concentration. Title II [On the services provided by the public regime] Chapter II [On Concessions]; Section II [On contracts] Article 99 sets the maximum term for a broadcast concession at 20 years. Concessions can be extended for equal periods given that the recipient of the concession has complied with the conditions and fulfilled the obligations set for that concession and also has expressly demonstrated their interest in the extension at least 30 months prior to the concession’s expiration. [This wording of article 99 is the amended version established by Law 13.89, signed into law on October 3, 2019.] 2002 Legislation: Law 10.610j

Date signed: December 20, 2002

Reasserts restrictions on foreign capital and foreigners in journalistic and broadcasting companies; restricting holdings to no more than 30 percent and requiring documentation annually. 2006 Legislation: Decree 5.820k

Date signed: June 29, 2006

Establishes rules for the transition of broadcasting from analog to digital transmission (Brazilian Digital TV System). 2011 Legislation: Law 12.485l

Date Signed: September 12, 2011

Establishes rules for pay televisions services, such as satellite and cable television providers. It also establishes regulations that restrict cross-ownership of media outlets across mediums. 2017 Legislation: Decree 9.138m

Date signed: August 22, 2017

(continued)

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Table 8.1 (continued) Amends Decree 52.795 (Broadcasting Services Regulations) Title V, Chapter 2, Article 15.II extends limits on the number of concessions permissible, established in Article 12 of Decree-Law 236 (signed February 28, 1967), to partners or directors of a legal entity who serve as a partner in the corporate structure or management of another legal entity that performs the same broadcasting services in the same location for which a concession or permission was intended. It also extends those limits to other legal entities that perform broadcasting services in various municipalities. 2022 Legislation: Decree 10.930n

Date Signed: January 7, 2022

This decree revokes Decree 1.720/1995, which detailed the requirements that an entity seeking a broadcast concession needed to fulfill and restricted the number of concessions a party could receive across mediums.

aThese are not direct translations of the legislation, but rather summaries of the major implications of these laws or parts of these laws bThe text of Law 4.117 is available in Portuguese here: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/ l4117compilada.htm cThe text of Decree 52.795/1963 is available in Portuguese here:http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/ decreto/antigos/d52795.htm; The text for Decree 7.670/2012 that modified the language of Title IV, Chapter 1, Articles 1 and 2 is available in Portuguese here: https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2011-2014/2012/Decreto/ D7670.htm#art1 dThe text of Decree-Law 236/1967 is available in Portuguese here: https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/ fed/declei/1960-1969/decreto-lei-236-28-fevereiro-1967-376046-publicacaooriginal-1-pe.html eAn English translation of Brazil’s 1988 Constitution is available through Constituteproject.org at the following link: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017.pdf?lang=en fIn December 2015, the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), supported by the NGO Intervozes, filed an allegation of noncompliance with a fundamental precept (ADPF 379) with the Federal Supreme Court alleging that 40 members of the National Congress violated the constitution by maintaining their roles as owners or continue to serve as a partner in a broadcast enterprise that benefits from a public concession. On February 3, 2021, the PSOL and Intervozes filed a new petition related to ADPF 379 for noncompliance; they sought a declaration that the participation of elected officials (for the term 2019–2023) who are board members of broadcasting companies is unconstitutional (Televiva 2021) gThe text of Decree 1.720/1995 is available in Portuguese here: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/ decreto/d1720.htm hThe text of Decree 2.108/1996 is available in Portuguese here: https://www.planalto.gov.br/ ccivil_03/decreto/d2108.htm iThe text of Law 9.472/1997 is available in Portuguese here: https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/ leis/l9472.htm The amended language adopted in Law 13.879/2019 is available in Portuguese here: https://www. planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2019/Lei/L13879.htm#art2 jThe text of Law 10.610/2002 is available in Portuguese here: https://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/ lei/2002/lei-10610-20-dezembro-2002-491611-publicacaooriginal-1-pl.html kThe text of Decree 5.820/2006 is available in Portuguese here: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ ccivil_03/_ato2004-2006/2006/decreto/d5820.htm lThe text of Law 12.485/2011 is available in Portuguese here: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ ato2011-2014/2011/lei/l12485.htm mThe text of Decree 9.138/2017 is available in Portuguese here: https://www.planalto.gov.br/ ccivil_03/_Ato2015-2018/2017/Decreto/D9138.htm#art1 nThe text of Decree 10.930/2022 is available in Portuguese here: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ ccivil_03/_Ato2019-2022/2022/Decreto/D10930.htm

1976

1967 1982

1962

31-Aug-57 10-Aug-72

1968 (TV Excelsior) 1976 (Rede Anhanguera) 1976

1987

Rômulo Maiorana

Grupo Liberal prev. Organizações Rômulo Maiorana Grupo Mirante

José Sarney Fernando Sarney Grupo Paranaense de Francisco Cunha Comunicação (GRPCom) Pereira Filho Edmundo Lemanski Grupo RBS Maurício Sirotsky Sobrinho Grupo Rede Amazônica Phelippe Daou

Jaime Câmara

Grupo Jaime Câmara

2000 1979

Year of affiliation

24-Oct-63 (Rede Anhanguera) 1935 (Grupo Jaime Câmara) 27-Apr-76 (TV Liberal) 1966 (ORM) 15-Mar-87

Tirreno da San Biagio 17-Dec-1991 José Bonifácio 1-Oct-79 Coutinho Nogueira

Grupo Diário de Mogi Grupo EP

Date founded

Founder

Media group

Table 8.2  Media groups with Globo affiliate stationsa

Eduardo Sirotsky Melzer Phelippe Daou Júnior

Guilherme Cunha Pereira

Sarney Family

Maiorana Family

Túlio da San Biagio José Bonifácio Coutinho Filho Antônio Carlos Coutinho Jamie Câmara Júnior

Proprietor

Rio Grande do Sul (12) Acre (1 affiliate, 1 RTV); Amapá (1); Amazonas (1 affiliate, 2 RTVs); Rondônia (6); Roraima (1)

Paraná (8)

Maranhão (4)

Pará (1 affiliate; 6 RTVs)

São Paulo (1) Bahia (6), partial stake; Minas Gerais (1); São Paulo (3) Goiás (8); Tocantins (3)

States of operation

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Rede InterTV

Rede Gazeta de Comunicações Rede Integração

Rede Bahia/Grupo Modesto Cerqueira

Rede Bahia

Organização Arnon de Mello Rabbit

NSC Comunicação

Grupo Tribuna

Grupo Sergipe

1-Dec-90

Arnaldo Cezar Coelho Antônio Carlos Magalhães

23-Apr-87 (Rede InterTV) 20-Sep-04 (Grupo InterTV)

1-May-64

Edson Garcia Nunes

Cleófas Uchoa (InterTV Cabo Frio) Aluízio Alves (InterTV Cabugi) Fernando Aboudib Camargo

11-Sep-76

25-May-05

Antônio Carlos Magalhães Modesto Cerqueira Cariê Lindenberg

5-Aug-75

27-Sep-75

16-Aug-17

1-Feb-92

1973

Arnon de Mello

Nairson Menezes Francisco Pimentel Josias Passos Roberto Mário Santini Carlos Sanchez

1987

1971

1976

1972

1975

1990

1979 affiliated as part of Grupo RBS 1975

1992

1973

Henrique Eduardo Alves Fernando Aboudib Camargo

Grupo Integração

Café Lindenberg

Fernando Collor de Mello Arnaldo Cezar Coelho Family Magalhães (66.67%) Grupo EP (33.3%) Magalhães Family Cerqueira Family

Roberto Clemente Santini Carlos Sanchez

Lourdes Franco Carolina Franco

(continued)

Minas Gerais (2); Rio de Janeiro (2) Rio Grande do Norte (1)

Minas Gerais (5)

Espírito Santo (4)

Bahia (1)

Bahia (5)

Rio de Janeiro (1)

Alagoas (1)

Santa Catarina (6)

São Paulo (1)

Sergipe (1)

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Cleófas Uchoa (InterTV Cabo Frio) Fernando Aboudib Camargo Eduardo Elias Zahran

Rede InterTV/Grupo Folha de Comunicação

Milton Bezerra Cabral Antônio Bezerra Cabral Roberto Marinho (TV Vanguarda SJ do C) José Bonifácio de Oliveira Sobrinho Valter Alencar

Rede Paraíba de Comunicação [Grupo São Braz] Rede Vanguarda

Sistema Clube de Comunicação

Vicente Jorge Espíndola Luiz de França Leite Inocêncio de Oliveira

Rede Nordeste de Comunicação

Rede Matogrossense de Comunicação [Grupo Zahan]

Founder

Media group

Table 8.2 (continued)

1987

1991

1976

1987

Year of affiliation

1-Oct-88 (TV 1988 Vanguarda SJ do C) 21-Aug-03 (Rede Vanguarda) 3-Dec-72 1975 (TV Rádio Clube da Teresina) 19-Nov-93 (Sistema Clube)

October 1986

1-Aug-91

23-Apr-87 (Rede InterTV); 20-Sep-04 (Grupo InterTV) 25-Dec-65

Date founded

States of operation

Mato Grosso (3 affiliates, 1 RTV); Mato Grosso do Sul (3) Pernambuco (1)

São Paulo (2)

Segisnando Alencar Piauí (2)

José Bonifácio de Oliveira Sobrinho

Vicente Jorge Espíndola Luiz de França Leite Inocêncio de Oliveira José Carlos da Silva Paraíba (2) Júnior

Grupo Zahran

Fernando Aboudib Rio de Janeiro (1) Camargo

Proprietor

158  E. A. STEIN AND K. BELARMINO

26-May-79

Joaquim da Costa Pereira

Edson Queiroz

J. Hawilla (Traffic)

Paulo César de Oliveira Lima

Sistema Verdes Mares

Traffic

TV Fronteira Paulista Ltda

1966 under previous names/ owners 1994

1970

1979

1991

Luciane Cappellazzo de Oliveira Lima Paulo Cesar de Oliveira Lima

Stefano Hawilla

São Paulo (1)

São Paulo (4)

Osvaldo Coelho Pernambuco (1) Patrícia Coelho Vânia Pereira Maia Pará (1) (58 %); Vânia Pereira (42%) Sistema Verdes Alagoas (2) Mares (Queiroz Family)

aThe number in parentheses next to each state indicates the number of affiliate stations the media group has in that state. “RTVs” are retransmitters.

1967 (Sistema Verdes Mares) 31-Jan-70 (TV Verdes Mares) 1980 (Traffic) 6-May-03 (TV TEM) 24-Feb-84

1-Aug-91

Osvaldo Coelho

Sistema Grande Rio de Comunicação Sistema Tapajós de Comunicação

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Alagoas • The situation of political dynastic ownership in Alagoas stands out in many people’s minds. The most popular newspaper in the state’s capital of Maceió, Gazeta de Alagoas; Maceio’s Globo affiliate, TV Gazeta Alagoas, and Gazeta 94 FM, the state’s most popular FM radio station according to a public opinion poll commissioned by the Federal Government and conducted by Ibope, all belong to the Organizações Arnon de Mello (OAM) along with a web portal, and four radio networks in total. The family of former President, ex-­Governor and current Senator of Alagoas, Fernando Collor de Mello owns the media group, which his father, Arnon de Mello, also a former senator, established. • In Alagoas, the Collor de Mello family does not stand alone as the only political family to own major media. TV Pajuçara, the Maceió affiliate of Record, lists members of the Tenório and Palmeira families among their partners, both political families in the state, among them former Senator João Evangelista da Costa Tenório (2007-2011). Ownership crosses over with other media holdings, including Empresa Gráfica de Comunicação Pajuçara Limitada and Radio Cultura de Arapiraca. Geraldo Bulhões Barros, a former Federal Deputy (1971-1991) and ex-Governor of Alagoas (1991-1995) is the named partner on both of these enterprises. –– Members of the Tenório family have several business holdings in sugarcane for the production of ethanol (Transcuçar Limitada, Agrel Agro Estrela Limitada, Sugar and Ethanol Serviços de Consultoria Limitada, Revcom Revenda de Combustiveis Limitada (Posto Santa Thereza), and Triunfor Agroindustrial, among other business interests in the state. • The family of José Renan Vasconcelos Calheiros, another Senator of Alagoas and the former president of the Senate, owns at least two radio networks in the state. While he is not named as a partner, his son, José Renan Vasconcelos Calheiros Filho, who is the current Governor and formerly served in the Chamber of Deputies and as mayor of Murici, is a named partner of Sistema Costa Dourada de Radiodifusão Limitada and Radio Correio de Alagoas S/S Limitada. –– The family also owns the cattle-farming business Agropecuaria Alagoa Limitada.

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Amapá • José Samuel Alcolumbre Tobelem, better known as Josiel, owns the media group Organizações José Alcolumbre de Comunicação, which owns the television stations, TV Amazônica and TV Equinócio, the Macapá affiliates of SBT and Record, respectively. He ran for substitute senator in 2014 alongside his brother David Samuel Alcolumbre Tobelem, who won the election for senator. Josiel also presides over the professional association for radio and television enterprises in Amapá. Bahía • As in Alagoas, well-established political families own the major media outlets in Bahia. The family of Antônio Carlos Magalhães (ACM), who passed away in 2007 after serving in the Senate from 1995 until his death, and as Minister of Communications, three terms as Governor and one as mayor of Salvador, controls two-thirds of Rede Bahia. Rede Bahia owns the Globo affiliate in Salvador as well as Correio da Bahia, the most circulated newspaper in the state according to the IVC, and Radio FM Bahia Sol, one of the more popular radio networks in the state. ACM’s son, Antônio Carlos Magalhães Júnior, serves as director of Rede Bahia and his grandson, Antônio Carlos Peixoto de Magalhães Neto, formerly the mayor of Salvador and a federal deputy, is listed as a partner on many of the media conglomerate’s media holdings, which include: Empresa Baiana de Jornalismo S/A (Jornal Correio da Bahia); Televisão Bahia S/A, Televisão Conquista Limitada (TV Sudoeste); Televisão Salvador Limitada (TV Salvador); TV Subaé Limitada (TV Subaé); Radio FM Bahia Sol Limitada (Bahia FM); Salvadorasat Comunicações Limitada (Rede Bahia); Gráfica Santa Helena Limitada; Radio Meridional da Bahia Limitada (102 FM Sul); BVL Bahia Video Limitada (Bahia Cinema & Video); Premium Produções Cirações Artísticas e Eventos Limitada (premium entertainment); Televisão Santa Cruz Limitada (TV Santa Cruz); and Radio 91 FM Limitada (Jovem Pan FM Salvador). –– Members of the family also have real estate enterprises, a business consultancy and wholesale company (Patrimonial Lempac

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­ imitada and BTS Participações Limitada, Lemmf Participações L Limitada and Carolina Pimentel Produções Artísticas, respectively). • The second major media group in Bahia is Grupo A Tarde, founded by Ernesto Simões Filho and passed on to his daughter, Regina Helena Simões de Mello Leitão, who has since passed away. Today several members of the Simões family remain listed as partners of their various subsidiaries. Renato Simões, in his early 90s, serves as president of the company. According to Bloomberg, as of January 28, 2017, Grupo A Tarde operates as a subsidiary of Piatra Participações. The media group publishes A Tarde and Massa! the second and third most circulated publications in the state according to IVC data. In addition to the two newspapers, they also own A Tarde FM radio network • The two-time mayor of Salvador, Mario de Melo Kertesz, owns O Grupo Metrópole , which publishes the popular newspaper, Jornal da Metrópole, owns Radio Metrópole FM and AM, and the Portal www.metro1.com.br. Kertesz and his family also own Radio Clube de Salvador Ceará • Among the media organizations that dominate the Ceará’s most popular media are Kaara Investmentos e Participações, which owns Sistema Jangadeiro de Comunicações, and Grupo Edson Queiroz, which owns the media group Sistema Verdes Mares. Renata Queiroz is listed among the partners of Sistema Verdes Mares, which publishes the most popular newspaper in Fortaleza, Diário do Nordeste; and owns Rádio Verdes Mares (93 FM) and TV Verdes Mares, the affiliate of Globo in Fortaleza. In addition, the company owns TV Diários (Ceará), TV Verdes Mares Cariri in Juazeiro do Norte; Rádio Verdes Mares AM, Rádio Recife, and Rádio Tamoio 900 in Rio de Janeiro. • The family of Tasso Jereissati, Senator for Ceará and former governor, including his son André Queiroz Jereissati, owns Sistema Jangadeiro de Comunicação, which owns TV Jangadeiro, the SBT affiliate in Fortaleza; Nordeste TV, Band’s Fortaleza affiliate; and Radio Jangadeiro FM in Sobral, Ceará. Senator Tasso Jereissati’s wife is Renata Queiroz Jereissati, the daughter of businessman Edson

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Queiroz. So effectively the Queiroz-Jereissati family control three of the five major television networks in the state, one of the major newspapers and several radio networks. –– Grupo Edson Queiroz has numerous other business interests beyond its communication holdings, including bottled beverages, paint, domestic appliances and agroindustry. Among these companies are Nacional Gas Butano Distribuidora, Indaia Brasil Aguas Minerais Limitada, Esmaltec S/A, Paragas Distribuidora Limitada, Esperanca Agropecuaria e Industria Limitada, Cascaju Agroindustrial Limitada, Nacional Arco-Iris Industria e Comercio de Tintas Limitada, Midol Mineracao Dolomita Limitada and Minalba Alimentos e Bebidas Ltda Maranhão • One of Brazil’s best known political families, the Sarneys, own the Grupo Mirante media organization that includes: Gráfica Escolar, publisher of the second-most circulated newspaper in the state, O Estado do Maranhão; TV Mirante, the Globo affiliate, with broadcast outlets in São Luís, Imperatriz, Cocais, Santa Inês and Balsas; TV Itapicuru Limtiada; TV Upaon Açu Limitada; Radio Mirante Limitada; Rádio Litoral Maranhense Limitada; Rádio Mirante do Maranhão Limitada and Rádio Poty Limitada. In 2014, Fernando Sarney, son of the former president, sold majority shares of Televisão Mirante, Rádio Litoral Maranhense (Mirante AM 600), Rádio Mirante e Limitada (FM 96.1) and Gráfica Escolar (O Estado do Maranhão) to his partner Paulo Guimarães, owner of Rede Meio Norte (Sistema Timon de Rádiodifusão Limitada) in Teresina, Piaui. Fernando Sarney continues to preside over the companies and his family members still appear as partners including his brother, José Sarney Filho, former state and federal deputy, and sister, Roseana Sarney Murad, former federal deputy, senator and governor for Maranhão, and his wife, Teresa Cristina Murad Sarney. –– Fernando Sarney also has investments in the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (Brazilian Confederation of Soccer). • Manoel Nunes Ribeiro Filho, state deputy, city council member and former mayor of the capital, São Lúis, is a partner in Sistema Maranhense de Radiodifusão (TV Maranhense), the affiliate of Rede Bandeirantes. Additionally he owns Gráfica e Editora São

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­ antaleão, R A Sistema de Radiodifusão Limitada and Rádio P Jainara Limitada. –– Additionally he’s a partner in a grain import/export business (Socioreais—Sociedade de Exportação e Improtação de Cereais Limitado), and the Yacht Club of São Luís. Other politicians owning media in Maranhão include: • Janice Braide, former state deputy, who is a named partner of Rádio Vanguard de Santa Luzia. • Former Senator Edson Lobão Filho owns Sistema Difusora de Comunicação (TV Difusora), the affiliate of SBT in São Luís. Pará • The Barbalho political clan dominates the communication scene in the state of Pará. Senator and former Governor Jader Fontenelle Barbalho and his family own Grupo RBA de Comunicação. Elcione Therezinha Zahluth Barbalho, Federal deputy of Pará, formerly married to the senator, and their son, Helder Zahluth Barbalho, also are named partners of various media organizations in the state. The media group publishes Diário do Pará, the highest circulated newspaper in the state. They also own RBA Rede Brasil Amazônia de Televisão Limitada (RBA TV), the affiliate of Rede Bandeirantes; Sistema Clube do Pará, Carajas FM Limitada and SNC Sistema Norte de Comunicação. –– The family has business interests in cattle ranching (Agropecuaria Rio Branco Limitada), ad sales (DOl Intermediação de Negocios e Portal de Internet Limitada) and in international trade in agricultural products and live animals (L.C. Representação Comercial e Comércio Atacadista Limitada). • The other large media group in the state, Organizações Rômulo Maiorana (ORM)—now Grupo Liberal—own Delta Publicidade, which publishes two popular newspapers—O Liberal and Amazônia. The widow of Rômulo Maiorana, Lucidéa Maioran, and her son, Rômulo Maiorana Júnior, head the company. ORM also owns Televisão Liberal Limitada (TV Liberal), Belém’s Globo affiliate; Rádio Liberal AM and FM; Lib Music FM; Modelo FM Limitada; Radio Tropical Limitada; VL Radiodifusão Limitada; Sistema

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Romulo Maiorana de Radiodifusao Limitada, RM Graph Editora, a publisher; Libnet Comunicação Interativa Limitada (Libnet internet portal) and RMTV Administradora Limitada (RMTV), ORM Cabo, ORM Cabo Ananindeua Limitada, ORM Sat Limitada, and ORM TV Limitada, all cable and satellite TV companies. –– Outside of media, the organization also owns several rental car companies (Norte Rent a Car Locação e Serviços de Veiculos Limitada and Central 7 Locação, Sonsignação e Serviços Limitada), beverage companies (CD Maraba Comerçio Limitada, Fly Indústria de Refrigerantes, Agua e Alimentos Limitada; Fly Acaí do Pará Indústria e Comerçio de Alimentos e Bebidas S/A and MB Atacado e Distribuidora Limitada) along with a handful of other companies across a variety of industries.

Notes 1. Unless otherwise noted, we are responsible for all the translations from Portuguese to English. As such, take responsibility if anything that is lost or misconstrued through our translations. 2. This term is an adaptation of the Brazilian term coronelismo, which traditionally has referred to political machines that operated throughout the country in the period known as the Old Republic from 1889–1930 (Hervieu, 2013). 3. Articles 223 and 224 of the 1988 constitution shifted the authority to review broadcast concessions a committee within Congress. Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, October 5, 1988. English translation available at https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017. pdf?lang=en, accessed on October 1, 2021. [See the timeline in the appendix for details.] 4. The authors calculated this statistic using data from the 2020 edition of the Cross-National Time Series Data archive (Banks & Wilson, 2020). 5. Diretas Já! Translates in English to Direct, Already! The military had approved a transition to civilian rule through indirect elections, but the movement’s supporters took to the streets in 1983 and 1984 demanding a total return to competitive, democratic elections with the direct vote of the people. The movement did not succeed, though it likely buoyed the opposition parties in the indirect vote. 6. In the appendix we provide details on media ownership for these states. 7. Filho is the word for son in Portuguese and neto is the word for grandson. Brazilians often use these terms in place of junior or the III, respectively. 8. This number includes subscribers outside of Brazil.

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References Andrion, R. (2020, March 22). Globoplay Will Limit Video Quality in Brazil. Olhar Digital. Retrieved October 6, 2021, from https://olhardigital. com.br/en/2020/03/22/noticias/globoplay-­v ai-­l imitar-­q ualidade-­ de-­videos-­no-­brasil/ Banks, A. S., & Wilson, K. A. (2020). Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive. Databanks International. Jerusalem, Israel; see https://www.cntsdata.com/ Benício, J. (2020). Em 2020, a TV ainda é mais influente do que a internet. Terra. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.terra.com.br/diversao/tv/ blog-­sala-­de-­tv/em-­2020-­a-­tv-­ainda-­e-­mais-­influente-­do-­que-­a-­internet,d41a 67c71563ca1cecea98db566fd53aby5tdndu.html Bieber, F. (2018). Patterns of Competitive Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans. East European Politics, 34(3), 337–354. Boas, T. C., & Daniel Hidalgo, F. (2011). Controlling the Airwaves: Incumbency Advantage and Community Radio in Brazil. American Journal of Political Science, 55(4), 869–885. Cho, J. E., Lee, J. S., & Song, B. K. (2017). Media Exposure and Regime Support Under Competitive Authoritarianism: Evidence from South Korea. Journal of East Asian Studies, 17(2), 145–166. de Albuquerque, A. (2018). Apresentação: Desafios da Comunicação Política depois do Golpe. [presentation: Political communication challenges after the coup]. Revista Contracampo, 37(2), 2–6. de Carvalho Bayma, I.  F. (2001). A Concentração da Propiedade de Meios de Comunicação e o Coronelismo Eletrônico no Brasil. [Translation: The Concentration of Media Ownership and Electronic Coronelismo in Brazil]. Revista de Conomia Política das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação, III(3), 140–171. Feltrin, R. (2021). TVs abertas seguem encolhendo no ibope; veja ranking completo. [Translation: Open-Air Television Networks Continue Shrinking According to IBOPE; See the Complete Ranking.]. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.uol.com.br/splash/noticias/ooops/2021/05/11/ ibope-­tv-­aberta-­record-­news-­sobe-­e-­encosta-­na-­tv-­brasil-­veja-­ranking.htm Globo. (2021, January). Number of Subscription Video-on-Demand (SVoD) Service Globoplay Subscribers Between January 2020 and 2021. Published by Deadline.com, accessed through Statista https://www.statista.com/statistics/1138978/globoplay-­number-­subscribers/ Gomes, L.  E. (2017, June 10). Da Família Sarney à RBS, livro aborda relação umbilical entre midia regional e poder político”. O sul21. Retrieved October 3, 2017, from https://sul21.com.br/ultimas-­noticiaspolitica/2017/06/ da-­familia-­sarney-­rbs-­livro-­aborda-­relacao-­umbilical-­entre-­midia-­regional-­e-­ poder-­politico/

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Graham, B. (1987, March 17). Sarney’s Tenure Embroils Brazilian Politics. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/03/17/sarneys-­tenure-­embroils-­brazilian-­ politics/34933ee5-­fc17-­4936-­bf90-­e7d9d85cecf9/ Hallin, D.  C., & Papathanassopoulos, S. (2002). Political Clientelism and the Media: Southern Europe and Latin America in Comparative Perspective. Media Culture & Society, 24, 175–195. Herrmann, J. D. (2014). Reflections on Regime Change and Democracy in Bahia, Brazil. Latin American Research Review, 49(3), 23–44. Herrmann, J. D. (2017). Media and Subnational Democracy: The Case of Bahia, Brazil. Democratization, 24(1), 81–99. Hervieu, B. (2013, January 24). Brazil, The Country of Thirty Berlusconis. Reporters Without Borders. Modified on January 20, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://rsf.org/en/reports/brazil-­country-­thirty-­berlusconis Knoblock-Westerwick, S., & Meng, J. (2009). Looking the Other Way: Selective Exposure to Attitude-Consistent and Counterattidtudinal Political Information. Communication Research, 36(3), 426–448. Levitsky, S., & Way, L.  A. (2002). The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 13(2), 51–65. Mari, A. (2020, May 27). Pandemic Puts Spotlight on Digital Inequality in Brazil. Brazil Tech. Retrieved October 6, 2021, from https://www.zdnet.com/article/pandemic-­puts-­spotlight-­on-­digital-­inequality-­in-­brazil/ Moody, R. (2021, September 10). Netflix Subscribers and Revenue by Country. Comparitech. Retrieved October 6, 2021, from https://www.comparitech. com/tv-­streaming/netflix-­subscribers/ Mounk, Y. (2018). The People vs. Democracy. Harvard University Press. Narloch, L. (2005, May 31). A voz do Brasil. Rede Globo: Mocinha ou Vilã? [Translation: The Voice of Brazil. Rede Globo: Little Girl or Villain.] Super Interessante. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://super.abril.com.br/ cultura/a-­voz-­do-­brasil/ Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Schulz, A. Simge, A. & Nielsen, R. K. (2020). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/ files/2020-06/DNR_2020_FINAL.pdf; see also https://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2020/brazil-2020/ Pieranti, O. P. (2006). “Políticas Para a Mídia: dos Militares ao Governo Lula.” [Translation: Policies for the Media: From the Military Regime to the Lula Government.] Lua Nova 68: 91–121. Pieroni, G., & Zapani, A. K. M. (2016). Coronelismo Eletrônico: a Concentração do Poder Midiático Nacional e no Paraná. Ação Midiática, 11, 243–266. https://doi.org/10.5380/2238-­0701.2016n1p241-­266

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Porto, M. P. (2003). Mass Media and Politics in Democratic Brazil. In M. DÁlva, G.  Kinzo, & J.  Dunkerley (Eds.), Brazil Since 1985: Politics, Economy and Society (pp. 288–313). Institute of Latin American Studies. Rover, T. (2015, December 6). PSOL volta a questionar no Supremo concessões de radiodifusão para políticos.” Boletime de Notícias ConJur (Conssultor Jurídico). Retrieved from https://www.conjur.com.br/2015-­dez-­06/ psol-­volta-­questionar-­concessoes-­radiodifusao-­politicos Skidmore, T. E. (1988). The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964–85. Oxford University Press. Stetka, V. (2012). From Multinationals to Business Tycoons: Media Ownership and Journalistic Autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 17(4), 433–456. Stiglitz, J. E. (2017). Toward a Taxonomy of Media Capture. In A. Shiffrin (Ed.), In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy (pp. 13–22). The National Endowment for Democracy. Straubhaar, J. D. (1989). Television and Video in the Transition from Military to Civilian Rule in Brazil. Latin American Research Review, 24(1), 140–154. van Dijk, T.  A. (2017). How Globo Media Manipulated the Impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. Discourse & Communication, 11(2), 199–229. Way, L. A. (2004). The Sources and Dynamics of Competitive Authoritarianism in Ukraine. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 20(1), 143–161. WorldBank, DataBank. (2020) World Development Indicators. World Bank Group. Retrieved October 5, 2021, from https://databank.worldbank. org/home.aspx Wikipedia. (2006). Lista de Emissoras da TV Globo. Last updated September 26, 2021. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.wikiwand.com/pt/ Lista_de_emissoras_da_TV_Globo

CHAPTER 9

Off the Map: Mexican TV Navigates a Post-­national, Post-broadcast World Vinicio Sinta

Introduction Surveys of global media systems often characterize Mexican broadcasting, and commercial television in particular, as a powerful institution with political, economic, and cultural clout that rivals even that of the State. Indeed, a cursory look at the scholarship on Mexican broadcasting and analyses of the industry provides plenty of evidence of the extraordinary influence of the country’s commercial television companies, and particularly of the two dominant players. The two large televisoras,1 Televisa and Televisión Azteca, together control a majority of national and local broadcasting licenses and command a large majority of the audience share (IFT, 2020c, 11). In addition to their dominance of the domestic market, both companies have had a wide international reach for decades, reaching the Mexican diaspora in the United States and exporting thousands of hours of content to the rest of the Spanish-speaking world (Sinclair, 1999).

V. Sinta (*) The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_9

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This scheme has been in place since 1993 when Azteca was borne out of the privatization of the public television network. Before that, Televisa was the only commercial TV company with national reach, operating as a virtual monopoly alongside a small number of local and regional broadcasters and a small public media system (Mejía, 1989; Vidal-Bonifaz, 2020; Pareja, 2010; Toussaint, 2009). This exceptional degree of concentration was fostered by the early establishment of mutually-beneficial relationships between media owners and government/political elites (Vásquez-Maguirre & Hartmann, 2013). Sheltered from competition and without the pressures of official regulation, the incumbent commercial televisoras developed sophisticated and complex corporate structures, in a clear example of the intertwined processes of convergence, globalization, and financialization pursued by transnational communications entities toward the end of the twentieth century. By the end of the twentieth century, Televisa and Azteca were thriving and active in fields that went far beyond the production and distribution of audiovisual content. Both companies at that point were involved in telecommunications, retail, hospitality, and professional sports, and operated vertically integrated business content segments that controlled every step in the creation, production, and distribution of audiovisual media (Gutiérrez-Rentería, 2010, 2014; Mancinas-Chávez et al., 2016). This collaborative model of state-commercial TV relations has been resilient. It remained in place in the face of technological change, international competition, globalized media markets, and the country’s democratic transition. Cable, satellite TV, and broadband internet in Mexico grew relatively slowly until the 2010s, limiting competition from other technologies (Straubhaar et  al., 2015), and multi-party politics did not result in any lasting changes to the status quo, at least in the short term. Near the end of the presidential term of Vicente Fox, the first president from a party other than the PRI since the advent of television in Mexico, the expedited congressional approval of an incumbent-friendly telecommunications law suggested that in the new millennium, the position of Televisa and Azteca at the pinnacle of economic, political, and cultural influence was as secure as it had been (Esteinou, 2008). And yet, the model eventually started showing fissures in the 2010s, when some market, technologic and regulatory changes finally dented the enduring dominance of incumbent broadcasters. Along the way, extrinsic factors pertaining to national politics (i.e. changes in public administration), national macroeconomics (i.e. the GDP slowdown and

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contraction), shifts in identities and dispositions about media consumption (Straubhaar et  al., 2016), particularly among middle classes, have resulted in a gradual loss of audience to foreign programming (Margolis, 2017; Martínez, 2020). At the close of the decade, the COVID-19 pandemic brought even more instability with an implosion of advertising spending and the suspension of public events (Leitzinger, 2021). To be sure, the events from the 2010s have not, as of 2021, led to a complete reversal of fortunes for Televisa and Azteca. The former, especially, has proven resilient after previous episodes of turmoil (Paxman & Saragoza, 2001). To date, it remains at the top among Spanish-language broadcasters in reach and influence, and it has more than a half-century of institutional knowledge in serving Spanish-language audiences worldwide. For that reason, this inflection point provides a valuable opportunity to analyze the potential strategies of the incumbent broadcasters. Against the backdrop of the multiple, interlocking challenges described above, this chapter highlights how Mexican legacy broadcasters—both family-led, publicly-traded conglomerates—have navigated a turbulent decade by reorienting investments, developing new subsidiaries, and even reinventing their core organizational identities as they decouple business segments and converge with international peer organizations. The next section explains the context of the current situation by summarizing the development of Mexican commercial television. The focus then turns to the multiple “storms” that engulfed both companies’ content business in the 2010s. The final section of the chapter draws on investor communications, trade and journalistic texts in a discussion of the strategic trajectories of Televisa and Azteca in the face of a less certain future.

Background From Telesistema to Televisa Telesistema Mexicano was borne out of an alliance between the recipients of the first three broadcast concessions: Channels 2, 4 and 5. After a triumphant debut of the medium in a State of the Union address by President Miguel Alemán, 5 years of fierce competition, high production costs, and a small audience base almost wiped out the field. In 1955, the owners of the three existing stations joined forces to form the first TV monopoly (Hernández Lomelí, 1996).

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Telesistema Mexicano flourished into the country’s national broadcaster in the middle of the “Mexican Miracle” of the mid-twentieth century, the post-war period of high economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization under the political hegemony of the PRI. While high poverty rates and a pronounced wealth inequality limited the penetration of TV receivers (Vidal-Bonifaz, 2020), Telesistema built up its network in a consistent manner by easily accumulating licenses and bringing local stations into its circle of influence (Hernández Lomelí, 1996; Vidal-Bonifaz, 2020, 28). Until 1960, the field was essentially unregulated. After the advent of the first broadcasting law, its application was discretional. In any case, the close ties—sometimes familial—linking media management and government ensured that companies like Telesistema faced few obstacles in their efforts to reach every corner of the country. This period was also the start of the company’s expansion into new business segments and geographic barriers. By the end of the decade, the Azcárragas had bought the Club América soccer team (Camhaji, 2017) and started a network of Spanish-language television stations in the United States. The new entity, originally named Spanish International Broadcasting, eventually grew to become what is now Univision, the first and largest national Spanish-language media company in the United States (Wilkinson, 2015). In 1969, the conglomerate received permission to operate Cablevisión, the first cable TV provider in Mexico City (Crovi Druetta, 2006). While Telesistema’s pay-TV service was not the first in the country, it did pioneer the sale of cable TV as a content alternative in an urban setting. The company thrived without competition in the following decades as no other entrant in the Mexico City metropolitan area, by far the largest local market in the country, would receive a concession from the government for years (Crovi Druetta, 2006). Between 1955 and 1972, Telesistema expanded to every state in the country. The only competition of note in the intervening years was Televisión Independiente de México (TIM), but this also turned out to be short-lived. In 1972, TIM and Telesistema merged into a new entity—the modern Grupo Televisa. With its only competition out of the picture, Televisa, now the only national commercial broadcaster in Mexico, was able to aggressively expand its reach and start new business segments. During this period, the company added hundreds of new stations or established partnerships with regional broadcasters, some of which eventually became affiliated with or had investments by Televisa (Vidal-­Bonifaz, 2020).

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It was also during this period that the company perfected the content ‘formulas’ that made it a media export powerhouse. Televisa built an empire around a vast library of telenovelas, slapstick comedy, and the occasional variety show (Sinclair, 1999). Some of these properties remained in syndication well into the twenty-first century and amassed big loyal followings well after they ended their run in Mexico. The aesthetics and conventions of Televisa melodramas went on to become familiar sights in Mexican households; over the years, generations of television viewers followed recurrent themes of forbidden love, loyalty, and family union— always with a happy ending. Over the decades, coverage and analysis on prime-time news spaces like 24 Horas were reliably pro-government, pro-­ establishment, and pro-Western in their outlook, with occasional nationalistic overtones (González de Bustamante, 2012). The Duopoly Era In its decade as a national network, Imevision was the closest equivalent to a national public broadcasting service in Mexico. The network, created in 1983 by the De la Madrid administration, added a smattering of regional stations over the years to reach a substantial portion of the country through two networks (channels 7 and 13), plus a local Mexico City station (Channel 22). Imevision differed from previous public broadcasting projects by transcending the educational-cultural orientation of other Mexican state-supported media; the organization produced fiction, comedy, telenovelas, and variety shows in the mold of Televisa and other Latin American broadcasters (Toussaint Alcaráz, 2009). While there is a little detailed research on Imevision’s short history, histories of Mexican broadcasting generally portray the network as erratic, underfunded, and unsuccessful as a true alternative to the Televisa formula (Wilkinson, 2006). But the context in which the network came to be was also untimely—it emerged during the “lost decade” (1980s), a period of prolonged economic malaise, null growth, and high inflation, right before a major generational and ideological shift in national Mexican politics. The rising neoliberal paradigm of economic and public administration, associated with the presidential terms of Miguel de la Madrid and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was premised on the necessity of opening the Mexican economy to global markets, deregulating key sectors of the economy, and privatizing state-run companies (Otero, 1995) in the interest of growth, modernization and competitiveness. These regimes favored an economic

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program focused on North American integration, in a process that culminated in the ratification and 1994 the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In a move justified by the Salinas de Gortari administration as a cost-­ cutting measure, Imevision’s broadcasting concessions, physical plant, and equipment were put on sale in late 1991 in a “bundle” with a film studio and an operator of live theater venues owned by the federal government (Ranieri, 1991). In 1993, the sale was consummated and Imevision’s concessions were transferred to Ricardo Salinas Pliego, leader of Grupo Salinas, a family-run company based in Mexico City active in retail and mobile communications (Gómez, 2004). In 1993, Televisión Azteca started operations as the first major entrant to commercial TV in two decades, and the only competitor to Televisa with true national reach. The first decade of Televisión Azteca was auspicious. In its initial years, the broadcaster seemed intent to differentiate itself and rejected some of the tried-and-true formulas perfected by Televisa. One of the best-attested distinctions is Azteca’s take on the traditional Mexican melodrama. In their initial years, the company established a partnership with Argos, an independent production company that created gritty, realistic television dramas that touched upon politics, class and social issues rarely addressed in Televisa’s programming (Hernández & McAnany, 2001; Piñón, 2016). The shows were generally well-received by audiences and critics alike, and Azteca quickly gained ground on Televisa. By the turn of the century, Azteca reliably held about a third of the audience share, putting an end to Televisa’s decades of absolute dominance (Gómez, 2004). While Azteca’s blockbusting first years suggested that it was possible to build a sustainable alternative to Televisa, both companies became more similar than different over time, as the novelty factor faded away and the businesses matured. In time, Azteca appeared to follow Televisa’s path into consolidation; the company acquired a football team (Morelia), created a music label, and fielded a similar mix of melodramas, game shows, variety revues, and eventually reality TV.  The company also worked to build its lineup of stars to counteract Televisa’s policy of signing exclusive contracts (Gutiérrez-Rentería, 2007). Eventually, Grupo Salinas also entered the U.S.  Spanish-language television market with the Azteca América network, intent to carve a niche among Mexican American audiences (Piñón, 2011). By the end of the decade and century, both Televisa and Azteca were listed in securities markets in Mexico and the United States. As Azteca came to resemble Televisa in both style and substance,

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the limits to its potential as a rival became apparent. The company hit a ceiling in its share of viewership and advertising market (hovering between one-fourth to one-third in both), surpassing Televisa only occasionally. Shifts in TV-State Relations At the time Azteca emerged, the ad hoc telecommunications regulatory regime that enabled the high concentration of the industry had remained almost untouched since the mid twentieth century, outside of a few mandates that forced broadcasters to yield airtime to the federal government (Gutiérrez-Rentería, 2009, 34). The bulk of the regulatory status quo, dating back to the 1960s, survived the arrival of political alternance in 1997 and 2000, when opposition parties PRD (left-of-center) and PAN (right-of-center) took over a devolved Mexico City government, ended the PRI’s hegemony over the federal legislature and eventually took over the presidency with Vicente Fox’s victory in July 2000. Despite vibrant debates in the academic and non-profit fields, the new factions operating the federal government showed little political will to curb the power of the dominant broadcasting and telecom businesses. As a case in point, a common exemplar of the power of incumbent media players in the political arena was the struggle over communications policy that unfolded in the 2000s. In 2006, the Mexican federal legislature introduced and approved an overhaul of the Mexican Radio and Television Law after intense lobbying by media executives. The bill, eventually identified as “Ley Televisa” by its critics, was highly favorable to the interests of the incumbents of broadcasting licenses and imposed onerous financial and regulatory burdens on potential newcomers (SourceMex, 2006). The bill was approved by unanimity in the lower house of the Mexican Legislature (the Chamber of Deputies) with votes from all major political parties, in a move condemned by members of civic society, NGOs, and advocates of media democratization. Opponents of the law criticized the lack of debate in Congress, the disregard for stakeholders from civic society, and the speed with which the legislation was passed (Reyes Montes, 2007; Esteinou Madrid, 2008). The Mexican Senate ended up approving the bill by 81-to-40 votes. Soon after its passing, the law was challenged in court by a multipartisan group of Senators and the Mexican Supreme Court eliminated key provisions, returning the regulatory broadcasting regime to the previous status quo (SourceMex, 2007). In the period following the Court’s

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decision, a new cohort of Mexican legislators established some indirect regulations on the media by placing constraints on broadcasters during electoral periods (Langston, 2009). These reforms, passed with the support of three rival political parties at the time, prolonged the renewed era of adversarial relations between private media and (at least part) of the federal government.

A Decade of Challenges Given the past history, the future of the two televisoras looked promising at the start of the 2010s. Enrique Peña Nieto prevailed in the 2012 election, with significant majorities for the PRI in Congress. The return to hegemony with a political party historically aligned with Televisa’s interests suggested that there would be a return to friendly and predictable media-government relations. As Tables 9.1 and 9.2 show, Televisa and Azteca reported highly profitable and diversified businesses at the start of Peña Nieto’s term. Both companies still controlled more than three-quarters of TV station licenses, and a large majority of advertising expenditures (Ugarte, 2012). And most of the revenue came from the continued ratings dominance of the Televisa formula; content was still king then, as it had been for over 60 years. Advertising sales and licensing remained the largest business segments in 2012, still accounting for a solid majority of the operating income (Grupo Televisa, 2012). The company’s investor communications brochure alludes to that, with prominent images of its stars and studio facilities integrated into its design. Table 9.1 Key Mexican Pesos)

2012 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

performance

indicators,

Grupo

Televisa

(Millions

of

Net sales

Operating income

Margin (%)

69,290 88,052 96,286 94,274 101,282 101,757 97,362

18,140 18,745 16,598 14,243 20,253 17,005 17,525

26.2 21.3 17.2 15.1 20 16.7 18

Source: Grupo Televisa (2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019a, 2020a)

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Table 9.2  Key financial information, Televisión Azteca (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

2012 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Gross revenue

Net income

Net margin (%)

956 810 760 731 756 665 499

175 −167 −170 −62 −34 79 −103

18.3 −20.6 −22.4 −8.5 −4.5 11.9 −20.6

Source: TV Azteca (2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)

In an unexpected turn, the rosy returns from 2012 would turn out to be among the last positive annual results for some time. In a matter of a few years, a series of shifts in telecom policy, the declining efficacy of traditional Mexican programming, and an overall depression in advertising spending led both televisoras into a period of high uncertainty. While both companies had gotten through previous difficult spells over the years, the decline in the 2010s happened in a more unpredictable context, without the protection of a favorable policy environment and with the added extra-­ national competition in the form of over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Over the course of 8 years, Televisa and Azteca companies have suffered significant losses in their participation in Mexican broadcasting, audience share, and have seen major drops in revenue and profit margins. A New Regulatory and Competitive Environment The first serious attempt at reining media concentration came to fruition in the early years of President Peña Nieto’s term. In 2014, Congress passed a new Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law—the second in less than a decade—as part of a package of constitutional reforms2 devised to foster competition and “modernize” key strategic sectors (Álvarez, 2017). The new law codified various measures that had been sought by proponents of media democratization for decades. Among its major stated goals, the law bolstered users’ and audiences’ rights and sought to foster a sector that is open, inclusive, and transparent (Diario Oficial de la Federación, 2013). In practical terms, the most tangible of the implemented changes was the creation of the Federal Telecommunications Institute (Instituto

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Federal de Telecomunicaciones, or IFT), an independent agency charged with regulating telecom networks and the radioelectric spectrum. Among its multiple functions, the IFT can allocate, renew or void broadcasting concessions, a duty that used to be under the direct discretion of the federal government through the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (Álvarez, 2017). The IFT was decentralized and had an explicit mission of enforcing antitrust regulations and correcting the existing concentration in the sector by applying incentives and sanctions to dominant players. Upon its creation, the institute acted quickly to lay new ground rules. Months after its creation, it declared Televisa the “dominant company” in free-to-air television and forced the company to share infrastructure and broadcasting rights with other participants in the field (Harrup, 2014). The IFT also started enforcing Must-Offer and Must-Carry regulations, curtailing incumbents’ ability to use their built-in advantages as pressure or blockading tactics with pay-TV providers (IFT, n.d.). A Third National Network In the spring of 2014, the institute started its first bidding process with openings for two new national TV networks; this addition to the Mexican media system was devised to reduce Televisa and Azteca’s market share (Diario Oficial de la Federación, 2014). The bidding and evaluation process unfolded over the next year and a half, with a parade of smaller players in media vying for one of the two packages of 123 local TV concessions covering every corner in Mexico. In March 2015, the IFT declared Grupo Radio Centro and Grupo Imagen the winners of the first bidding process in 20 years, although only the latter went on to receive and use the broadcasting concessions (Martínez, 2015; Mackenzie, 2015). Grupo Imagen was a known entity when it came on the air as a national chain in October 2016, and its debut as a free-to-air national TV chain was no radical departure from the model set by Televisa and followed to a large degree by Azteca (Reina, 2016). In its first 5 years, Imagen TV has gradually grown its share of the Mexican television market as it continues to develop its national infrastructure. The new networks quickly reached 21 percent of TV stations (IFT, 2020b), but viewership data has shown a more gradual and slower uptake, consistent with the expectations for an entrant into a concentrated sector with high startup costs. In 2018, 7 percent of respondents in a national survey on media consumption said

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Imagen was one of their “most frequently watched” TV channels channel (IFT, 2019); the following year, the number increased to 10 percent (IFT, 2020a). Data from an IFT assessment of the effects of Imagen’s entry shows that consistent with the institute’s plan, the growth of the new national network during the 2016–2020 period came at the expense of Televisa and Azteca. In consequence, by 2019 the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for the Mexican TV market shrunk along with the ad revenues for the legacy broadcasters, although the sector remains far from qualifying as a competitive market (2020b). Ad Revenue Loss: A “Perfect Storm” Imagen’s 2016 entry into the sector was untimely. Advertising spending on broadcast television began a steep decline in the middle of the decade, as Mexican audiences became increasingly fragmented by the increase of pay-TV and digital platforms. By the middle of the decade, unforced errors like obsolete pricing strategies (Smith & Navarro, 2017) and an apparent lack of foresight regarding the vigorous competition offered by foreign streaming services trapped legacy broadcasters in a “perfect storm” of shrinking ad revenue (Harrup, 2015). Some of the shifts blamed for this slump were overdue, given the trends in ICT adoption in Latin America. Mexico had a late and slow adoption of multichannel TV and internet services, with very low uptake rates well into the late 2000s (Straubhaar et al., 2015). And while cable and satellite TV viewers typically retain a certain degree of loyalty to domestic free-to-­ air channels, the advent of over-the-top (OTT) platforms offering culturally proximate content presented a complicated scenario for legacy broadcasters. As the decade progressed, internet speeds increased significantly (IFT, 2021a) and the number of streaming media services available in Mexico ballooned (IFT, 2020d). In 2015, Netflix launched the first of many (co)productions conceived and produced in Mexico, with Mexican creatives and talent, completely bypassing the Televisa and Azteca distribution and production clusters (Tillman, 2019). This new type of competition was unlike anything the televisoras had ever contended with: a cash-rich, non-broadcast (and therefore, free from close regulatory scrutiny) entity, with the institutional knowledge to develop glossy audiovisual productions and the data to market and distribute them effectively. Forced to play defense on their home turf, the legacy broadcasters struggled to respond quickly and effectively. Televisa,

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for instance, licensed content to Netflix before removing it to launch its own SVOD platform, called Blim (Rios & Scarlata, 2018). By the time Blim launched, catching up with the market share of Netflix and other domestic early movers was very difficult. In a 2021 survey, only 3.6 percent of people who had an OTT subscription opted for the platform (IFT, 2021b). While the cord-cutting and content substitution trends have been consistent over the years, the penetration of paid VOD platforms is still far from universal. It stood at 37.1 percent in a spring 2021 national sample (IFT, 2021b), and as with multichannel TV, it’s disproportionately concentrated among the more affluent population segments (Straubhaar et  al., 2019). However, the stronger presence of OTT platforms in the viewing diets of younger generations speaks to the ebbing effectiveness of the Televisa formula and foretells a difficult path ahead. This is consistent with the situation of Univision, which has relied on Televisa content for decades. The U.S. company has seen young Latina/o viewers drift away for years, with many turning to grittier, more realistic offerings of competitor Telemundo or just opting for English-language content (Ramachandran & Campo-Flores, 2016). At the end of the decade, the slump faced by the televisoras was worsened by two other unforeseen and unavoidable events that have further impacted advertising revenues: first, a series of radical cuts made to government advertising spending by a new administration, and then the generalized impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Governmental institutions of all levels are among the largest buyers of advertising in Mexico and the main source of revenue for many smaller outlets. In Mexico, specifically, public spending on advertising grew through the 2010s, only to get dramatically slashed after another change of guard in the federal government. In 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) came to power on the former’s third attempt at winning the presidency. López Obrador, or AMLO, who leads the first left-of-center administration in Mexico in decades advanced a platform of fighting corruption, ending neoliberal policies from the past administrations, and governing under an ethos of “republican austerity.” As a first and immediate show of the latter, his government all but eliminated media spending in his first year. In the first 8 months of 2019, AMLO’s administration spent less than 3.6 percent of what Peña Nieto did in the same period the previous year; Televisa attributed an 8 percent annual reduction in its ad revenue to these drastic cuts (Grupo Televisa, 2019b). The shortfall immediately triggered a series

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of layoffs in media outlets of all sizes, including the broadcasting giants (Martínez, 2019; Torres, 2019). The companies’ bad fortunes did not stop at the budget cuts. As a corollary to the long slide, commercial advertising was dragged down as the COVID-19 pandemic caused the Mexican economy to have its sharpest drop in almost 90 years (Graham, 2021); Televisa reported a 16 percent fall in ad revenue at the end of 2020, attributable primarily to the epidemic’s impacts (Grupo Televisa, 2020b). In addition to the generalized impacts to the Mexican economy, the health emergency also caused the cancellation of special events organized, covered, and cross-promoted by Televisa and Azteca subsidiaries—including some of the remaining audience draws, like soccer games (Leitzinger, 2021). TV Azteca, being less diversified and more reliant on ad revenues, posted its worst revenue and profits figures in more than a decade (Televisión Azteca, 2020).

Futureproofed by History and by Circumstance The big televisoras did not just grit their teeth and suffer through the litany of adverse events described above. The decade went by in a blur of acquisitions, closures, transfers, and realignments. While some of these developments are reactive, as in the sale of underperforming business segments to cut costs, others represent the acceleration of a longer trend toward diversifying revenue streams and consummating old aspirations to internationalize. In the process, Televisa and Azteca—public companies in complex corporate structures—have retreated from business segments with limited growth potential and (new) unfavorable regulatory barriers, to consolidate around others deemed to have the most potential for growth and better returns (Tables 9.3, 9.4). As the following section shows, this process of strategic de-convergence from areas of low growth potential and the cultivation of transnational and pan-Hispanophone initiatives, both televisoras have yielded a significant degree of control over the distribution of TV and video content in Mexico. “Analog” De-convergence Citing the need to cut costs, Grupo Televisa has reduced or ended its involvement in several of its “non-core” business units. Some of the moves have been quite abrupt: the company ended its participation in radio—the Azcárragas’ original media business—by 2020 after selling its remaining

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Table 9.3  Grupo Televisa business segments, 2012–2020 comparison Advertising 2012 4 national networks, local O & O stations and affiliates 2020 4 national channels (digital), local O & O stations and affiliates Telecom 2012 Cable, broadband, voice services in Mexico 2020 Cable, broadband, and mobile services

Subscriptions 22 pay-TV channels through 40+feeds available internationally 27 pay-TV channels through 65 feeds available internationally

Satellite DBS TV in Mexico, Central America, Dominican Republic DBS TV in Mexico, Central America, Dominican Republic Radio Film 2012 91 stations in Mexico Distribution rights in and the U.S. (17 O Lat. Am. & O, 74 affiliates)

2020

Distribution rights in Lat. Am.

Licensing Broadcasting rights for original content in the US (Univision) and other markets Broadcasting rights for original content in the US (Univision) and 69 other countries. Publishing 186 magazines in 20 countries

32 magazines in Mexico

Other investments 2 football teams and Aztec stadium, Univision, live entertainment, mobile, Spain media company, lotteries, bingo parlors, and casinos 1 football team and Azteca stadium, Univision, live entertainment (sold 2021) online lottery, bingo parlors, and casinos

Source: Grupo Televisa (2012, 2020a)

stake on a chain of radio stations (Espeso, 2020). Its print segment has also been significantly downsized in the past decade, as the company closed its Latin American publishing divisions and reduced its footprint in Mexico (Nájar, 2019; Castañares, 2021). In 2021, the company also completed the sale of its stake in live entertainment (Gilchrist, 2021). Televisión Azteca also completed a major restructuring of its television business in recent years. In what could appear to be a counterintuitive retreat from the U.S. Spanish-language market, the firm sold its stations in the country to HC2 Network Inc., while leaving in place an agreement to continue operating the network as Azteca América—and licensing its content library (Villafañe, 2017). With hundreds of stations in most corners of the country, the HC2 transaction opened—in the words of Azteca América’s CEO—an opportunity to add scale that the company would not be able to do on its own (Villafañe, 2017).

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Table 9.4  Televisión Azteca business segments, 2012–2020 comparison National TV

2012 2 national channels (analogue)Azteca, 13. 2020 4 national TV channels (digital)Azteca Uno, Azteca7, adn40, amas+ Online 2012 Web portal

2020 Web presence for TV business, original content

Local TV

Pay-TV

International (TV) US Central America Network affiliates 2 analogue in 40 US markets channels in Guatemala

35 stations

5 channels distributed internationally

31 stations

5 channels distributed internationally

Telecom Fibre network development in Colombia Fibre network development in Peru

Sports I football team

Other businesses Music, web, live, entertainment

1 football team, golf tournament

Music, web, live entertainment, esports channel, international co-productions

3 digital channels in Guatemala, I in Honduras

Source: TV Azteca (2012, 2020)

Infrastructure Investments It is ironic that one of the biggest sources of audience attrition for Televisa and Azteca—the widespread adoption of broadband internet in Mexico— is also the one business segment that has kept Televisa above water in terms of revenue. The firm has leveraged five-plus decades of expertise in telecom services in its drive to build a national network. From the 2000s on, the company embarked on a series of acquisitions and mergers with regional triple-play providers and infrastructure wholesalers (Sarmiento, 2019). This strategy of horizontal integration and geographic expansion has gradually brought Televisa to control around a fourth of the cable, broadband, and voice markets. This now places the company in direct competition with América Móvil, the incumbent leader in phone and internet services (IFT, 2021a). The gradual decline of content revenue channels and the steady growth of the telecom business has resulted in a sudden reversal of priorities and a change in corporate identity. While content still represented a majority of

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the revenue for Televisa in 2012 (54 percent), by the end of the decade the telecom services segment had replaced it as the top moneymaker, producing about 46.6 percent of the company’s operating income to 30.5 percent for advertising, licensing and multichannel subscriptions combined (Grupo Televisa, 2020a). In time, the photos of celebrities and TV studios that adorned informational brochures have made way for antennas, servers, and futuristic imagery. In the meantime, Azteca has been active in several telecommunications and infrastructure initiatives of its own. During the 2010s, the company opened business units in Colombia and Peru, where it received contracts to develop and operate optic fiber networks; both ventures were eventually finished or canceled (Juárez Escalona, 2016; Lucas-Bartolo, 2021a). On the domestic front, a sister company within the Grupo Salinas conglomerate called TotalPlay is also making gains in the triple playfield, with a focus on proprietary hardware and the pursuit of very high-speed internet as a differentiator (Castañares, 2016). In early 2021, Azteca received a temporary permit from the federal government that would allow Totalplay to “experiment” with 5G networking for commercial applications (Lucas-Bartolo, 2021b). Global Aspirations: Re-convergence as Global Spanish-Language Media In what is likely the biggest restructuring since its 1972 consolidation, in April 2021 Televisa and Univision announced the merger of their content units into a new, binational entity headquartered in the U.S. but with a significant footprint in Mexico (James, 2021; Villafañe, 2021). The new entity will succeed Televisa as the world’s largest Spanish-language content provider, inheriting the four broadcast networks, cable channels/stations, SVOD platform, production assets, and intellectual property (Grupo Televisa, 2021). The agreement stipulates the continuity of Grupo Televisa as a telecom provider and holder of broadcasting licenses. The news division, for its part, will be outsourced to a new company founded by former CEO Emilio Azcárraga Jean in Mexico City (Villafañe, 2021). In a 180-degree turn, the agreement states that Grupo Televisa will license content from the new Univision-Televisa giant for its multichannel services (Grupo Televisa, 2021). The new arrangement represents, indirectly, a consummation of Televisa’s long-time project of controlling the Miami-based “post-­national” Spanishlanguage programming machine (Moreno Esparza, 2012), but now with a

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global ambition. The biggest undertaking for the new entity, as per the original announcement, will be a global AVOD platform with a target audience of 600 million Spanish speakers around the world (Littleton, 2021). The announcement of the Univision-Televisa merger also gives new life to the much-awaited promise of “modernizing” their fiction offerings to compete with Netflix and the rest of the SVOD competitors. Expectations for the new streaming giant are very high, with promises for over 45,000 h of Spanish-language content, 30 original exclusives, livestreaming channels, and the libraries of the integrating companies (Reynolds, 2021). For its part, Azteca has also endeavored to start new divisions and partnerships that hold the promise of generating novel properties with the potential to match up with those of VOD platforms. In 2017, the company supported the launch of Dopamine, a standalone production company focused on developing “high-end” original content. The fledgling studio has been involved in the development and co-production of original properties and Mexican adaptations in collaboration with a wide array of international partners (Dopamine, 2021). On the domestic realm, Azteca also entered the Esports media field by purchasing shares in Allied Esports in 2019. The company launched an online Mexican Esports channel and is involved in the organization and broadcast of events and tournaments in Mexico (Fitch, 2019; Villafañe, 2019).

Conclusion The 2010s, and especially the second half of the decade, have been years of uncertainty for the content (i.e. “television”) units of Televisa and Televisión Azteca. The old barriers that fostered stability for the televisoras are gone: (a) the current regulatory environment in Mexico puts incumbents under greater scrutiny than ever before; (b) there is not only a new broadcasting chain in Mexico, but a large and growing set of global competitors that do not face the same regulatory pressures; (c) their exclusive claims to having the “pulse” of mass audiences in Mexico have been eroded by the speed, aggressiveness, and judging by the results, accuracy with which global streaming giants—led by Netflix— have served a steady supply of glossy, culturally-relevant, Spanishlanguage content. Playing defense in their home turf at the end of the decade, the content units of Televisa and Azteca are playing catch up in a race to raise production values and pursue different storytelling strategies to retain

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Mexican viewers and compete for foreign audiences. A lack of action would entail giving up a substantial portion—perhaps a generation—of Mexican and Latin American viewers to alternative platforms. While traditional content following the traditional formats still has currency among a sizeable segment of the Mexican and Latin American viewership (Straubhaar et  al., 2016, 2019), the results from the past decade make it difficult to envision a future in which both companies’ content segments return to growth without a significant change in their competitive strategy. In that regard, several of the steps summarized in this chapter represent ambitious attempts at relaunching the firms as regional (or global) Spanish-­ language media companies. Televisa’s partial merger with Univision presents an opportunity for the company’s production units to address hemispheric and global audiences while benefiting from the institutional knowledge and resources of the U.S. Spanish-language production clusters (Sinclair, 1999). On a different scale, Grupo Salinas’ (Azteca) sponsorship of an independent production house could be an exemplar of strategies to foster global connections and in turn, innovate Mexican televisual storytelling. The changes to come will present valuable exemplars for future analyses, not only on the effectiveness of the strategies pursued by Televisa and Azteca or their fit into broader international trends but also on the process itself of addressing a global Hispanophone audience and its implications for representations of the national, the local and the pan-American.

Notes 1. In the Mexican context, the definition of “TV network” is fundamentally different from that used in discussions of American television (the “Big Three,” plus local stations and affiliates.) The televisoras in Mexico are conglomerates of multiple networks: from 1993 through the TDT transition, Televisa operated four networks—Channels 2, 4, 5 and 9—and Azteca two: Azteca 7 and 13. 2. The Pact for Mexico (Pacto por México) was an agreement by the three largest congressional delegations at the start of the presidential term of Enrique Peña Nieto. The pact comprised a series of major reforms to the energy sector, the educational system, and the public finances, among other fields. The frantic pace at which the constitutional reforms were drafted and approved caused the telecommunications law to receive relatively little public debate.

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presta-­1 70-­M Hz-­d e-­f recuencias-­p or-­u n-­a no-­a -­T V-­A zteca-­p ara-­q ue-­ experimente-­con-­tecnologia-­5G-­20211115-­0086.html Mackenzie, D. (2015, September 28). IFT declara desierta licitación para una cadena de TV abierta; cobra 415 mdp de Radio Centro. Vanguardia. Retrieved from https://vanguardia.com.mx/dinero/2617777-­i ft-­d eclara-­d esier talicitacion-­para-­una-­cadena-­de-­tv-­abierta-­cobra-­415-­mdp-­de-­radio-­centro-­ AOVG2617777 Mancinas-Chávez, R., Ortega-Pérez, A., & Vidal-Bonifaz, F. (2016). La penetración de sectores ajenos a la comunicación en los grupos mediáticos: El caso del Grupo Televisa. Global Media Journal México, 13(24), 43–58. Margolis, M. (2017, August 11). Netflix Woos Latin American Viewers by Going Local. Bloomberg.com. Martínez, A. (2015, March 12). Dan concesión de TV abierta a CadenaTres y Radio Centro. El Financiero. Retrieved from https://www.elfinanciero.com. m x / e m p r e s a s / i f t -­a d j u d i c a -­c o n c e s i o n e s -­d e -­t v -­a b i e r t a -­a - c a d e n a tres-­y-­radio-­centro/ Martínez, M. (2019, September 26). Analysis: Mexico’s Private Media Feel Pain of AMLO Funding Cuts. BBC Monitoring. Retrieved from https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c201461w Martínez, C. (2020, January 16). Baja la audiencia en la televisión abierta. El Universal. Retrieved from https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/cartera/ baja-­la-­audiencia-­en-­la-­television-­abierta Mejía Barquera, F. (1989). La industria de la radio y la television y la política del Estado mexicano (1920–1960). Fundación Manuel Buendía. Moreno Esparza, G. A. (2012). Televisa and Univision, 50 Years of Media Post-­ nationalism. Global Media and Communication, 7(1), 62–68. Nájar, A. (2019, March 8). Por qué la gigante mexicana Televisa se retira del mercado editorial de América Latina. BBC News Mundo. Retrieved from https:// www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-­america-­latina-­47466580 Otero, G. (1995, August). Mexico’s Political Future(s) in a Globalizing World Economy. Canadian Review of Sociology, 32(3), 315–339. Pareja Sánchez, N. (2010). Televisión y democracia. La television abierta y su oferta en la Ciudad de México. Andamios, 7(14 (Sept.-Dec.)), 101–135. Paxman, A., & Saragoza, A. M. (2001). Globalization and Latin American Powers: The Case of Mexico’s Televisa. In V. Mosco & D. Schiller (Eds.), Continental Order? Integrating North America for Cybercapitalism (pp. 64–85). Rowman & Littlefield. Piñón, J. (2011). The Unexplored Challenges of Television Distribution: The Case of Azteca America. Television & New Media, 12(1), 66–90. Piñón, J. (2016). Complex Labor Relations in Latin American Television Industries. In M.  Curtin & K.  Sanson (Eds.), Precarious Creativity: Global Media, Local Labor (pp. 132–145). University of California Press.

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Ramachandran, S., & Campo-Flores, A. (2016, September 6). Univision, Televisa Wrestle with Changing Tastes Among Hispanic Millennials. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/univision-­televisa-­wrestlewith-­changing-­tastes-­among-­hispanic-­millennials-­1473012096 Ranieri, S. (1991, December 18). Televisa Stock Offerings in Mexican & Foreign Markets. SourceMex, Latin American Data Base, University of New Mexico. Retrieved from: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/sourcemex/1220. Reina, E. (2016, October 13). Why Mexico’s Third National TV Channel Is Falling Short of Expectations. El País. Retrieved from https://english.elpais. com/elpais/2016/10/12/inenglish/1476278557_213961.html Reyes Montes, M. C. (2007). Comunicación política y medios en México: El caso de la reforma a la Ley Federal de Radio y Televisión. Convergencia, 14(43), 105–136. Reynolds, M. (2021, June 25). Univision Aims to Offer more Spanish-Language Content than Any Other Streamer. S & P Global Market Intelligence. Retrieved from https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-­insights/ latest-­news-headlines/univision-­aims-­to-­offer-­more-­spanish-­language-contentthan-­any-­other-­streamer-­65180831 Rios, S., & Scarlata, A. (2018). Locating SVOD in Australia and Mexico: Stan and Blim Contend with Netflix. Critical Studies on Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 13(4), 475–490. Sarmiento, T. (2019, December 9). 2019 LatAm groups report: Grupo Televisa tapping into fiber optics in Mexico. Global Multichannel, S & P Global Market Intelligence. Sinclair, J. (1999). Latin American Television: A Global View. Oxford University Press. Smith, G., & Navarro, A. (2017, October 11). Televisa Takes Page from U.S. to Cash In on Viewership Gains. Bloomberg.com. SourceMex. (2006, April 5). Senate Approves Controversial Broadcast Law. Latin American Data Base. Retrieved from https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=5975&context=sourcemex SourceMex. (2007, June 20). Supreme Court Declares Key Prosvisions of Broadcast Law Unconstitutional. Latin American Data Base. Retrieved from https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6116 &context=sourcemex Straubhaar, J. D., Spence, J., Joyce, V. H., Sinta, V., Mora, A., et al. (2015). The Evolution of Television: An Analysis of 10 Years of TGI Latin America (2004–2014). Program in Latino and Latin American Media, University of Texas at Austin. Straubhaar, J. D., Sinta, V., Spence, J., & Joyce, V. H. (2016). Changing Class Formations and Changing Television Viewing: The New Middle Class,

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CHAPTER 10

The Politics of Broadcasting Regulation in Uganda Adolf E. Mbaine

Introduction On 26 September 2017, as the debate in Parliament on removing the constitutional age limit to enable President Yoweri Museveni to stand again in 2021 ensued, the Executive Director of the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), Godfrey Mutabazi issued a directive halting the live coverage of the parliamentary proceedings. The live broadcasts were, in his judgement, inciting the public, discriminating, stirring up hatred, promoting a culture of violence amongst the viewers, and were likely to create public insecurity or violence (ACME, 2016). In his view, such broadcasts were, therefore, in breach of the minimum broadcasting standards as laid down in section 31 of the Uganda Communications Act, 2013 and best practice guidelines for electronic media coverage/ reporting and broadcasting of live events. Non-compliance with the directive would result in suspension and revocation of broadcast  licences in accordance with section 41 of the Act.

A. E. Mbaine (*) Department of Journalism and Communication, Makerere University, Uganda © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_10

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Any cursory observer of happenings in Uganda may have failed to read the real intention of the directive from the UCC. The proposed constitutional amendment referred to above was generating widespread public criticism and opposition. The political establishment thus feared that the live debates would embolden public opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment. The proceedings were disrupted by the army who stormed Parliament and violently threw out the MPs opposed to the amendment, evoking memories of the country’s 1966 crisis, which was a period of serious political conflict pitting then Prime Minister Milton Obote against the Kabaka of Buganda, Mutesa 11. By banning live coverage of Parliamentary proceedings, the UCC was, therefore, doing the regime’s bidding, which seems to have climaxed towards the general elections of 2016 and in the period immediately after the polls. In an earlier public notice dated 17 September 2017, the UCC had warned against the “increasing use of social and electronic media to perpetrate illegalities like sectarianism, hate speech, inciting public violence and prejudice, pornographic content, among others…” and advised members of the public to report abusers to police or the UCC (www. ucc.co.ug). The action of the UCC at a time Ugandans were keen to know what was going on regarding a significant change in the country’s constitution’s basic structure raised reasonable apprehension about the role politics of restriction played in broadcasting regulation, and what remained of UCC’s independence as a regulator especially in an age where digitization had vastly changed the terrain of broadcasting.

The Essence of Broadcast Regulation According to Horwitz (1997), regulation is established in response to conflict between private corporations and the public; in other words, to protect the public from the excesses of industry. From a political economy perspective though, it is difficult to see how such regulators can act as a check against such excesses, within the context of a capitalist economic system. However, Moyo (2009) has posited that there is a public interest responsibility to serve for broadcast regulatory agencies and thus regulation should be for the benefit of the common good. Independent

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regulators are essential in ensuring that there is an independent and competitive communications sector that serves this common good. Broadcast regulation is necessary for a variety of legitimate reasons: allocating use of a public resource—the frequency spectrum; ensuring diversity and pluralism in broadcasting—of giving a voice to the weakest sections of society; counteracting voices of hate across the air waves; holding broadcasters to account—for example through complaints procedures; and, protecting freedom of expression and editorial independence. Thus, a key issue in broadcast regulation remains the nature and character of the regulator, which can by its own determine the success or failure of broadcast regulation. Regulatory independence, involving the delegation of regulatory powers to an agency distinct from government (Moyo & Hlongwane, 2009), is thus of significant importance. Some key characteristics of an independent regulatory agency include: (a) Location outside government, but not necessarily outside the state; (b) Sufficient resources to enable it discharge its mandate; (c) Control over those matters directly connected with the functions it has to perform under its founding statute; and (d) The tenure of its members governed by appropriate appointment and removal provisions which ensure that members are appropriately qualified, do not serve at the pleasure of the executive and can be removed only on objective grounds relating to job performance (Moyo, 2009; as quoted from FXI, 2008: 18). To these, Article IX has added the value, by way of emphasis, the need to include some form of public participation in the appointment processes, and the importance of such regulator reporting directly to a body that is likely to be more independent itself, like Parliament. It is important to point out that the appointment process of regulators involves high level political actors in any jurisdiction. What matters more is that once such people are appointed, they have the legal and institutional guarantees and protection to carry out their functions independently. As Freedman (2008) has enthused, politics constitutes a key context in which policy ideas are developed and rolled out, and the task is not to avoid politics per se but the subjective and irrational manner of what passes for much of contemporary political discourse.

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The Political Economy of Broadcast Regulation Historically, there has been a tendency for governments globally to regulate the broadcast media more heavily than, for example, the print media because the airwaves remain a public resource that ought to be parceled to users more carefully and be paid for through license fees. Additionally, there were also frequency limitations as the spectrum was not infinite (which has receded with better technology and digitization). Furthermore, the population also needed to be protected from harmful broadcast information travelling faster than the printed word. What was not given as much emphasis was the influence that broadcasting yields (both television and radio) and how it could be used for mobilisation and transformative purposes. Political economy refers to theories and analytical approaches which seek to understand how economic and political relationships, interests and affiliations determine the nature and functioning of social institutions (including the media), and the impact, or lack of it, of these relationships on social transformation and development (Fourie, 2007, 134). Mosco (2009, 2–3) has defined political economy as “the study of social relations, particularly the power relations that mutually constitute the production, distribution and consumption of resources, including communication resources.” According to Kellner (2009), political economy underscores the fact that production, distribution and reception of culture occur within a specific economic and political system that includes the state, the economy, social institutions and practices, culture and organisations such as the media. Kellner further posits that the system of production and the relations between the state sector and the economy ultimately determine media content and its consumption and that therefore, political economy: “does not merely pertain to economics, but to the relations between the economics, political, technological and cultural dimensions of the social context in which media industries function.” (110). The political economy link between the media, market forces and politics is profound, in as far as political economy directs research attention to the empirical analysis of the structure of ownership and control of the media and the way market forces operate. Therefore, media institutions must be considered as part of the economic system, with close links to the political system (McQuail, 2000, 82; Fourie, 2001, 136). Indeed, according to Fourie (2007, 135), an underlying political economy proposition is

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that the economic and political control of the media determines the content and thus the ideological power of the media. Needless to say, political economy prioritises the understanding of how economic power provides a basis for ideological and political power (Baran & Davis, 2012). Ownership of the media and other forms of communication and culture form one of the primary mechanisms by which the ruling class maintains its position of power and privilege (Fourie, 2001; Maweu, 2012) by determining the character of mass media systems and their content (McQuail, 2000). For our purposes, our political economy analysis shall focus on the inner dynamics of specific regulatory institutions because they determine a lot, to help us understand what regulatory systems are in place, who established them, who constituted them, what is their motive, how they operate, their relationship with political and economic centres of power, and who benefits from their work ultimately. As Horwitz (1997, 23) noted, regulatory bodies are necessarily connected to the historical circumstances around them. This analysis could help unpack the power relations embedded in the regulation system and relate these to power dynamics in society more broadly, to help explain why regulatory failure occurs (Duncan, 2012).

Broadcasting in Uganda and the ‘Birth’ of UCC Broadcasting in Uganda was introduced by the colonial government in the early 1950s and remained exclusively under the state, until liberalisation of the airwaves in 1993 saw the introduction of private broadcasting. A committee set up by the British Colonial Office in 1937 and chaired by the Earl of Plymouth was instituted to inquire into the possibility of starting broadcasting in the colonies. The Committee found that radio broadcasting was both viable and helpful to the colonial government’s need to provide information on issues like agriculture and health in the colonies (Jjuuko, 2002, 32; Chibita, 2006, 112; Mwesige et al., 2016, 24–25). In Uganda, radio, established as the Uganda Broadcasting Services (UBS) in 1953, was initially expected to carry BBC re-broadcasts of news and other programmes, and to counter pro-independence propaganda that the British believed was being perpetuated by the local language newspapers. Indeed, the urgency to establish a radio broadcasting service in Uganda did not become serious until the protests of 1949 (Gariyo, 1992, 42). A Committee of Inquiry into government information services, established in 1958, recommended that Uganda Broadcasting Service should

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be placed under a minister for purposes of political supervision of the country’s broadcasting and related policy, which continued even after independence in 1962 (Jjuuko, 2002). Government control of what was supposed to be public radio and television (television was introduced in Uganda in 1963, just on the eve of Uganda’s first anniversary of independence) has been manifest throughout the post-independence period in Uganda. The liberalisation of the airwaves since 1993 propelled a proliferation of private FM radio stations that emerged as platforms for debates on topical issues, and thus increased media voices. The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) reported that it had licenced 292 radio stations, and 33 television stations by March, 2018. Liberalisation, needless to say, has led to a rapid expansion of the broadcasting industry in Uganda. There is concern, though, about the ownership of the broadcast stations, as they are mostly owned by politicians and businessmen allied to the ruling NRM party. Indeed, the UCC has been criticised for being politically partisan and hesitant to license radio stations it considers anti-­ government (Jjuuko, 2002, 57; Barya, 2017, 11–12). It is also common for broadcast owners with ruling party allegiances to deny opposition politicians airtime, in news and other programmes, especially during election period. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, open air talk shows, known as ‘Ebimeeza’, became common on broadcast stations in Uganda involving citizens discussing topical issues. These talk shows were mostly irreverent, often directing citizen anger at the ruling establishment over failure of government to deliver services, abuse of human rights, corruption, just to mention a few (Mwesige et al., 2016, 221). The government of Uganda banned these talk shows ahead of the 2006 general elections, precisely to avoid public scrutiny. In Africa, pressure from those who hold power comes to bear on the media and journalists to tone down on criticism when the population is restive over bad policies, and/or when there is the added challenge of a strong opposition like it was in Zimbabwe (Mwesige et  al., 2016, 221; Chuma, 2010, 94–95). The latter case is what transpired in Uganda ever since Col (Rtd) Dr. Kizza Besigye—former bush war comrade of President Museveni and personal physician—emerged to politically challenge Museveni for the presidency in 2001 (Kalinaki, 2014; Branch, 2015, 120–121). Therefore, in spite of a liberalised broadcast environment, threats to both television and radio stations remain under the NRM

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government, including the shutting down of media organisations. Indeed, following the September 2009 riots that were caused by a stand-off between the central government and Buganda Kingdom, the government ordered the closure of four radio stations based in Kampala (ACME, 2010; HRNJ, 2013; Barya, 2017). In neighbouring Tanzania, various human rights and media landscape reports indicate that freedom of expression and of the media in Tanzania has continued to deteriorate, especially under the late President John Pombe Magufuli who oversaw a precipitous decline in protections for freedom of expression from 2015. The Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) (2020) report shows that in January 2019, the regulatory authority, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), fined five television stations a total of TSh. 60 million ($27,000) for broadcasting a press conference by the LHRC in which the organisation accused the government security forces of abuses during the November 2017 by-elections. The regulator argued that the content was ‘seditious’ and contrary to the broadcasting regulations. Similarly, the January 2018 action to shut down four television stations by the government of Kenya, after the stations covered the swearing-in ceremony of opposition leader, Raila Odinga, while ignoring a court order, for several days, that ordered the relevant Cabinet Secretaries to allow the stations back on air, demonstrates the kind of legal regimes that television and the entire broadcasting sector operate in in many parts of Africa. Thus, to be able to keep broadcasters under control, the Ugandan government relies on the regulator with a specific remit to serve the interests of the people who hold power. The enactment of laws that create regulatory authorities seldom involves consultation with industry stakeholders as much as the process of constituting boards for regulators has increasingly become the preserve of the highest authority. As Mwesige et al. (2016) observed, in Uganda today, membership to a board of a public institution is now more likely to be based on reward for political support and/or the political work one is needed to perform in that institution, rather than on competence and integrity. Regulation for private broadcasting commenced in 1996 with the enactment of the Electronic Media Statute 1996 that provided for a Broadcasting Council that essentially issued broadcasting licences and regulated content for television and radio stations. The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) established under the Uganda Communications Commission Act, 1997 was responsible for

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allocating and licensing the use of the radio frequency spectrum (Nassanga et al., 2013, 8). As Jjuuko (2002) has further observed, the merger between the old Uganda Communications Commission and the Broadcasting Council occurred long before the Uganda Communications Act, 2013 was enacted. The merger was effected in 2010 by “administrative fiat,” without reference to the relevant laws in place and such discrepancy is a theme that runs right through all aspects of the actual regulation of broadcasting. The UCC created under the Uganda Communications Act, 2013 is a converged regulator for both broadcasting and telecommunications.

UCC’s Mandate The UCC is established by the Uganda Communications Act, 2013. In its short title, the Act was meant to consolidate and harmonise the Uganda Communications Act and the Electronic Media Act; to dissolve the Uganda Communications Commission (created under the UCC Act of 1997) and the Broadcasting Council and reconstitute them as one body known as the Uganda Communications Commission. The UCC has multifarious functions under the Act but the following suffice for broadcasting purposes: • to monitor, inspect, license, supervise, control and regulate communications services; • to allocate, license, standardize and manage the use of the radio frequency spectrum resources in a manner that ensures widest variety of programming and optimal utilization of spectrum resources; • to process applications for the allocation of satellite orbital locations; • to receive, investigate and arbitrate complaints relating to communications services, and take necessary action; • to promote and safeguard the interests of consumers and operators as regards the quality of communications services and equipment; • to promote research into the development and use of new communications techniques and technologies, including those which promote accessibility of persons with disability and other members of society to communications services; • to improve communications services generally and to ensure equitable distribution of services throughout the country.

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It is important to note that statutory regulation is generally acceptable for broadcasting in order to regulate a public resource to ensure diversity of views and secure the public interest or the common good. Such broadcast regulators should, however, be independent of the executive arm of government, political parties and the industry itself (Duncan, 8; Moyo & Hlongwane, 2009, 281; Article XIX, 2006, 10). Indeed, Principle VIII of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa relates to regulatory bodies for broadcasting and telecommunications and it provides that: “Any public authority that exercises powers in the area of broadcast or telecommunications regulation should be independent and adequately protected against interference, particularly of a political and economic nature” (Jjuuko, 2002, 55).

UCC and Politics in Uganda Uganda has displayed most characteristics of a rogue African post-colonial state: parasitic in nature and largely interested in the economic and political survival of key personalities. The exercise of power in several post-­ colonial states in Africa us personalized, brutal, intolerant and militaristic. Indeed, the military on the continent, save for a few countries like Botswana and South Africa, are not institutionalised but personal armies serving the personal interests and agenda of the head of state and participating in all aspects of life like the economy, politics and elections, and basic law and order functions that would otherwise have been the preserve of police (Mbaine, 2019, 16). Several post-colonial African states have also consistently displayed a mercenary character, as an instrument for furthering foreign interests both economically and in foreign policy. In fact, a number of countries (Angola and the DRC being fine examples) became battlegrounds in geo-political struggles between world powers. The United States has been accused of remaining supportive of President Yoweri Museveni, despite being allegedly responsible for much of the chaos in Eastern Africa, because he is considered an effective ally in Washington’s war against radical Islam in Africa (Epstein, 2017). It is therefore hardly surprising that many post-­ independence African leaders have confronted national challenges with authoritarianism as has happened in Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania (Karugire, 1980, 1988; Mutibwa, 1992; Ogenga Otunnu, 2017; Ogundimu, 2002). Many count on their strategic importance to geopolitical struggles between world powers.

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The NRM government, in power since 1986, may be described as a hybrid or illiberal regime, which combines both democratic and authoritarian features (Oloka-Onyango & Ahikire 2017, 5). Indeed, Barya (2017, 5) has described it as a neo-patrimonial state using informal methods, structures and procedures and cushioned by an imperial presidency and kleptocracy. A hybrid form of government “…may hold elections and come across as committed to constitutional rule with some respect to rights and liberties, but the contestation arenas that are supposed to constitute the democratic polity are manipulated in favour of the ruling elite” (Urribarri, 2011, 854). An Amnesty International Report on Uganda 2016/2017 stated that local observers said the elections of 2016 were not free and fair, while international electoral observers noted that the electoral process failed to meet international standards. “Violations of freedom of association, expression, assembly and the use of excessive force by security officials continued during campaigns and into the post-election period.” (see www.amnesty.org/en/countries/africa/uganda/ report-­uganda). It can indeed be argued that despite pretensions to the contrary, the NRM is essentially a military autocracy, and that the electoral machinery is always structured benefit President Museveni (Oloka-Onyango & Ahikire, 2017, 6). It is not difficult to see that under the prevailing political circumstances, UCC merely operates like an extension of the party in power, rather than an independent regulatory body.

The Minimum Broadcasting Standards The structure of UCC does not signify independence in regulation of television and the broadcasting sector generally. Uganda lacks a democratic policy environment: the existence of many competing voices and perspectives that interact with each other in an open, non-discriminatory and vigorous way to reach agreement on policies that maximise the welfare of the majority as opposed to the interests of a few (Freedman, 2008, 14). It has been argued that the ministerial power of appointment of all members of the UCC erodes its independence (Jjuuko, 2002). Pointedly, there now public participation in the nomination and eventual appointment of the public’s representative on the Board. One of the UCC’s flagship regulations are the Minimum Broadcasting Standards in the fourth schedule of the Uganda Communications Act, 2013, which state as follows:

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A broadcaster or video operator shall ensure that— (a) Any programme which is broadcast— • is not contrary to public morality; • does not promote the culture of violence or ethnical prejudice among the public, especially the children and the youth; • in the case of a news broadcast, is free from distortion of facts; • is not likely to create public insecurity or violence; • is in compliance with the existing law; (b) Programmes that are broadcast are balanced to ensure harmony in such programmes; (c) Adult-oriented programmes are appropriately scheduled; (d) Where a programme that is broadcast is in respect to a contender for a public office, that each contender is given equal opportunity on such a programme. On the surface, there is nothing objectionable about television broadcasters observing these standards to ensure good, harmless and balanced content. However, in a politically unpredictable situation like Uganda, these ‘standards’ are deliberately vague to ensure they can be interpreted and enforced narrowly to achieve certain political goals. As Jjuuko (2002) has succinctly argued, the requirement that broadcast programmes should not be “likely to create public insecurity or violence” is political in the sense that the NRM government for example considers the activities of the political opposition a danger to security. Secondly, the UCC has failed to enforce the provision to the effect that where a programme that is broadcast is in respect to a contender for a public office, each contender is given equal opportunity on such a programme. The Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), which is supposed to be a public broadcaster by provisions of the UBC Act, 2005, has consistently denied airtime on its television and other platforms to other presidential candidates, other than the incumbent, in national elections. Indeed, the Supreme Court judgement in Amama Mbabazi v Museveni & Ors (Presidential Election Petition No. 01 of 2016) faulted the UBC for failing to provide equal coverage to all presidential candidates as required by the Constitution and the law, noting that this was also an issue in previous elections (see www.ulii.org/ug/judgement/supreme-­court/2016/3).

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The UCC was certainly aware about this misconduct by the UBC but elected to look the other way because the regulator plays politics in regulation. Thirdly, the Minimum Broadcasting Standards were included in the Act without consultation with broadcasters, in the same way journalism ethical standards were made part of the Press and Journalist Act 2000 with no input from journalists. As Berger (2010, 289–290) has pointedly argued, journalistic ethics and standards are not strictly legal issues that require regulation by a statutory authority.

UCC and the 2016 Elections: Key Incidents The 2016 elections became heated when former prime minister, Amama Mbabazi, broke ranks with the President and the NRM and contested as an independent candidate. Meanwhile, FDC’s Kizza Besigye was standing for a record fourth time against Museveni for the presidency. The legacy of incumbency, having been in power for 30 years weighted heavily against Museveni. By July, 2015, the UCC was already issuing warnings to television stations as the country approached presidential, parliamentary and local council elections. The stations were cautioned against negative practices like lack of balance, sensationalism, incitement and relying on unauthorized and unreliable sources of information (See directive referenced UCC-BD/GEN/03, dated 8th July 2015 at www.ucc.co.ug). But the UCC directives elicited concerns about its broader intentions. First, issues around ethics and professionalism were a remit of the Media Council. Secondly and more crucially, the UCC did not define what it meant by such nebulous terms such as “unauthorized and unreliable sources of information,” leaving them to any form of interpretation that could be used to interfere with ordinary reporting of the electoral process. As the election drew near, in early February 2016, the UCC issued another statement to the effect that Radio and TV stations in Uganda were being closely monitored by the regulator in the election season, and outlined regulations for minimum broadcasting standards with a strong warning to broadcasters against breaking the law. This placed many broadcasting houses on the edge, as the UCC demanded for “professionalism and responsible behavior” from TV and radio stations (www.acme-­ug. org). The warning however seemed to be more intent on preventing ordinary conversations about all candidates in the presidential race, scaring

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television and other broadcasting stations from hosting opposition candidates and stifling free reporting on the elections. To cap UCC’s policing of the airwaves, the regulator shut down social media on 17th February 2016, on the eve of polling day, rendering communication gathering and sharing by the electorate impossible. The Amnesty Report 2016/2017 (op cit) criticized the UCC for blocking access to Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp on polling day and subsequent days, on the basis of an unspecified threat to national security. A few people were able to beat this shut down via VPN. Telecom provider MTN confirmed in a Twitter post (even though blocked) that it had been instructed by the regulatory authority to block access to the platforms due to “security concerns.” President Museveni, also openly confirmed that he directed the UCC on what to do, declaring the measures necessary to stop people using the platforms for “telling lies.” Access to the platforms was restored on February 21, 2016, 4 days later, but was blocked again for a day, on May 11 2016, the day before President Museveni’s inauguration, reportedly for security reasons.

The UCC as a State Apparatus The challenges of the 2016 presidential elections dissipated as soon Museveni was sworn in as President in May 2016 and focus immediately shifted to the 2021 general election. The key question was whether President Museveni was going to stand again in 2021 as there was a constitutional prohibition of anyone above 75 years of age standing for president in the country. As explained at the beginning of this chapter, the Constitution was amended in December 2017 and the age limit clause was removed by Parliament. The ruling NRM party enjoys a parliamentary majority in the Ugandan parliament. However, a by-election in one of the constituencies post the 2016 parliamentary poll brought forth famous singer, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu aka Bobi Wine into Parliament at the end of 2016. He quickly made his intentions known to stand for the presidency, creating challenges for the broadcast regulator. On April 13 2019, UCC issued directives to six television stations and seven radio stations to immediately suspend the producers, editors and heads of programmes who had been on duty the previous day and had allowed a breach of the ‘Minimum Broadcasting Standards’. It emerged that these broadcast stations had reported on an activity involving Ssentamu and allegedly allowed him what the UCC

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considered “inappropriate” large amounts of airtime, to the disadvantage of other political players. In subsequent explanations, and when pressed over who had complained, the UCC claimed it was the security agents who had filed the complaint for the breach. Following a meeting between the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the UCC, the latter clarified that the Commission had directed that the affected staff should not be suspended from their employment but rather be requested to step aside to pave way for investigations into the alleged breach of minimum broadcasting standards. It further noted that the employees who had been asked to step aside be allowed to continue working with the their employers in other roles which were not the subject of the investigation.” The Uganda Journalists Association (UJA) filed a case against the UCC for judicial review against its directives to the television and radio stations over the suspension, citing excessive abuse of statutory powers and discretion, in addition to abuse of constitutional guarantees of rights to information, freedom of expression and exchange of ideas. On May 23 2019, Justice Lydia Mugambe of the High Court of Uganda allowed the UJA application and ordered an injunction against the UCC suspensions. The case is still in Court. It should be noted that the disciplining of journalists for any professional breaches in Uganda is a function of the Media Council established under the Press and Journalist Act 2000, and not of the UCC. Secondly, in coming down heavily on journalists with suspensions from duty, the UCC was sending a clear message to journalists and television stations on how far it was ready to go. Indeed, whenever UCC is not immediately alerted, there are Resident District Commissioners and District Internal Security Officers who stop television and radio stations from hosting opposition candidates and politicians on stations in their areas of control, with impunity. Courts of law, when petitioned over such unilateral actions, are usually reluctant to intervene and when they do, such cases take inordinate lengths of time (Oloka-Onyango, 2017). The reluctance of courts to intervene in ‘hot political matters’ and the delay in determining cases by the same courts enables bodies like the UCC to threaten broadcasters and cow them into silence. The case by UJA against UCC cited above is one of those notable exceptions. Regulatory bodies in Uganda thus find themselves enjoying unchecked power. It was perhaps because of this that industry specific tribunals have been established by law to deal with complaints about bodies that take decisions that have consequences for citizens and/or institutions. For example, in the

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case of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), there is the Tax Appeals Tribunal (TAT); the electricity sub-sector has the Electricity Disputes Tribunal; while the Inspectorate of Government has the Leadership Code Tribunal that should become operational soon. It was, perhaps, in this spirit that the legislature provided for the Uganda Communications Tribunal under the Uganda Communications Act 2013 (in Sections 60–65), with jurisdiction to hear and determine all matters (except criminal offences) relating to communication services arising from decisions made by the UCC or the Minister under the Act. The Tribunal is composed of three persons: a judge and two other members appointed by the President on recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). Unfortunately, the Tribunal has never been constituted since 2013 when the Act came into force. As Kalinaki (2014) has noted, the coming into force of the Tribunal would have avoided a situation where the UCC continues to act as detective, arresting officer, prosecutor, judge and executioner all rolled into one, as was the case with the example given above. In other words the Tribunal would have acted as a countervailing force against arbitrariness by the UCC and ensured that the regulator does not exercise unchecked power. To be fair to the UCC, however, the constitution of the Tribunal into being is largely a task shared between the President and the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). The government of the day is currently not keen about having the Tribunal running since the UCC in its current form is able to do what the government wants.

The State as ‘Regulator’ Most Ugandan government agencies are often firmly controlled by the sector Minister, which raises reservations about their independence especially if they are regulators. For instance, the Media Council created under the Press and Journalist Act 2000 to regulate journalists is composed of 13 government and non-government members all appointed by the Minister responsible for information. This affords the government considerable control over who gets appointed to the Media Council (Jjuuko, 2002, 76). The Minister also determines the remuneration of the members, budget and houses the Media Council within the premises of the Ministry (Anite & Nkuubi, 2014, 27).

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This ministerial control and direction also runs through the UCC as the Minister exercises full control of the regulatory body through: • Appointment of the Board with only the approval of Cabinet • Giving policy guidelines in writing, which the Board must comply with • Board serving at the pleasure of the Minister • Determining Board members’ remuneration • Approving all sources of funding for the Commission Therefore, as Anite and Nkuubi (2014) pointed out, the UCC lacks independence and is under the control and restrictive authority of the Minister, and ultimately the executive branch of government, headed by the president. It is no wonder, therefore, that the UCC does its best to give advantage to the incumbent at critical times like elections, restricting coverage of other contenders for political office.

Conclusion The conduct of the UCC before, during and after the elections of 2016 demonstrates its lack of independence as a regulator. This lack of independence undermines the sector while also denying citizen participation in public affairs. There is thus urgent need for a broad national conversation involving all shades of policy actors about the character of the UCC, its conduct and its roles as contained in the law. Going forward, at least in the short term, the reform of regulatory agencies like the UCC is not going to happen considering the prevalent political restrictions. Only a much more liberal political dispensation supportive of basic freedoms is necessary to ensure regulators like UCC become the public institutions they are supposed to be. However, even in the absence of broader political reforms, the voices of journalists and civil society actors and even other stakeholders like media owners can crystalise into a force that can force reform. Ugandan journalists are not generally strong on self-organisation but the formation of the nascent Editors Guild in 2019 may as well begin to shape some discussions on reforming the UCC. Meanwhile, the process of bringing together key media players under the Media Sector Working Group (MSWG) was launched in 2021 and promises to provide leadership on broader issues

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affecting the media in Uganda. These initiatives, working with other forces in civil society and other political and diplomatic actors, can advocate changes in the political spectrum for greater freedoms and engender progressive changes in the media regulatory framework, including but not limited to regulators like the UCC.

References ACME. (2010). Overview of the State of Media Freedom in Uganda: A research Report. ACME. Kampala. ACME. (2016). Monitoring Media Coverage of the 2016 Elections: September 2015 Report (pp. 1–25). ACME. Anite, C., & Nkuubi, J. (2014). Media Freedom in Uganda: Analysis of Inequitable Legal Limitations. HRNJ-Uganda. Article 19. (2006). Broadcasting Pluralism AND Diversity: Training Manual for African Regulators. London. Baran, S. J. & Davis, D. D. (2012). Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment and Future. Sixth Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Barya, J. J. (2017). A paper presentation at the Makerere University Annual Media Convention organised by the Department of Journalism and Communication, 30 November, 2017. Unpublished. Berger, G. (2010). The Struggle for Press Self-Regulation in South Africa: Charting a Course Between and Industry Charade and a Government Doormat. Communication, 36(3), 289–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/0250016 7.2010.518783 Branch, A. (2015). Political Walking in Uganda. In A.  Branch & Z.  Mampilly (Eds.), Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change. Zed Books. Chibita, M. (2006). Indigenous Language Programming and Citizen Participation in Ugandan Broadcasting: An Exploratory Study. PhD Diss., Unisa. Chuma, W. (2010). Reforming the Media in Zimbabwe: Critical Reflections. In W. Chuma & D. Moyo (Eds.), Media Policy in a Changing Southern Africa: Critical Reflections on Media Reforms in the Global Age (pp. 90–109). Unisa. Duncan, J. 2012. A Political Economy of Press Self-regulation: A Case of South Africa. Paper produced for the International Association of Communications and Media Research (IAMCR) 2012 Conference. Durban. Epstein, H. (2017). Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda and the War on Terror. Columbia Global Reports. Fourie, P.  J. (2001). Characteristics, trends and the political economy of the media. In Media studies. Volume 1: Institutions, theories and issues, edited by PJ Fourie. Lansdowne: Juta.

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Freedman, D. (2008). The Politics of Media Policy. Polity Press. Gariyo, Z. (1992). The Press and Democratic Struggles in Uganda: 1900—1962. Working Paper No. 24, 1–79. Centre for Basic Research. Horwitz, R. (1997). Theories of Regulation. In P. Golding & G. Murdock (Eds.), The Political Economy of the Media (pp. 384–418). Edward Elgar. HRNJ-Uganda. (2013). No Gains: Press Freedom Still Fragile. HRNJ  – Uganda. Kampala. Jjuuko, M. 2002. The impact of media commercialisationon programming: Case study of Radio Uganda. MA Thesis. Rhodes University. Unpublished. Kalinaki, D.  K. (2014). Kizza Besigye: And Uganda’s Unfinished Revolution. Dominant Seven Publishers. See Daily Monitor, May 08, 2019: https://www. monitor.co.ug/uganda/oped/columnists/daniel-­kalinaki/here-­s-­why-­ithink-­ the-­ucc-­is-­wrong-­to-­call-­for-­suspension-­of-­journalists-­1824536 Karugire, S.  R. (1980). A Political History of Uganda. Heinemann Educational Books. Karugire, S. R. (1988). Roots of Instability in Uganda. Fountain Publishers. Kellner, D. (2009). Media Industries, Political Economy and Media/Cultural Studies: An Articulation. In J.  Holt & A.  Perren (Eds.), Media Industries: History, Theory and Method. Wiley-Blackwell. Maweu, J. M. (2012). An Investigation into How Journalists Experience Economic and Political Pressure on Their Ethical Decisions at the Nation Media Group in Kenya. PhD Diss., Rhodes University. Mbaine, A.  E. (2019). The Challenges of Establishing a Sustainable Regulatory System for Journalists for Media Accountability to Society: A Case Study of Uganda. PhD Diss., University of Johannesburg. McQuail, D. (2000). Mass Communication Theory (4th ed.). SAGE. Mosco, V. (2009). The Political Economy of Communication (2nd ed.). SAGE. Moyo, D., & Hlongwane, S. (2009). Regulatory Independence and the Public Interest: The Case of South Africa’s ICASA. Journal of African media Studies, 1(2), 279–294. Mwesige, P., et  al. (2016). Report of the UBC Review Committee: Securing the Future of Public Broadcasting in Uganda. Government of Uganda. Oloka-Onyango, J. (2017). Freedom of Expression, Media Rights and Access to Information. In Political Question Doctrine in Uganda: An Analysis of the Technicalities on the Realisation of Freedoms of Expression, Association and Assembly in Uganda. Chapter Four Uganda. Oloka-Onyango, J., & Ahikire, J. (Eds.). (2017). Controlling Consent: Uganda’s 2016 Elections. Africa World Press. Otunnu, O. (2017). Crisis of Legitimacy and Political Violence in Uganda 1979 to 2016. Palgrave Macmillan. Hampshire and New York.

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Ogundimu, F.F. (2002). Media and Democracy in Twenty-first-century Africa. in Hyden, G. et  al (eds). Media and Democracy in Africa. Transaction Publishers. London. Urribarri, R.  A. S. (2011). Courts Between Democracy and Hybrid Authoritarianism: Evidence from the Venezuelan Supreme Court. Law and Social Inquiry, 36(4), 854–884.

CHAPTER 11

When Stakeholder Interests Truncate Policy Intentions: The Case of Digital Television Migration in Nigeria Akin Akingbulu

Introduction Television broadcasting occupies an important space in communication and governance in Nigeria. It is widely regarded as a major outlet of information and education as well as a platform for popular expression. (Federal Republic Nigeria, Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999). Section 39 of the Constitution of Nigeria recognises television as a tool for the actualization of citizens’ right to freedom of expression while Section 22 recognises its role in monitoring governance, by upholding “the responsibility and accountability of government to the people”. Television broadcasting in Nigeria falls under two categories: state and commercial. State broadcasting in Nigeria is both at the national and regional levels. National state television is operated by the federal government while regional broadcasters are controlled by the regional state

A. Akingbulu (*) Institute for Media and Society (IMS), Lagos, Nigeria © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6_11

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(second tier) governments. At the federal level is the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) which also serves as the country’s official national TV broadcaster. It operates a network of 67 stations spread across the country. The state governments run a combined total of 37 stations. Private or commercial TV broadcasting started in the early 1990s following the liberalization of the media sector expanding the sector exponentially.

The Context of Policy Legacies Television was introduced in Nigeria in the closing years of the colonial administration. The 1950s were characterized mainly by nationalist struggles by local politicians to secure political independence for the country from Britain, the colonial power. Radio broadcasting had been introduced in the early 1930s through the Empire Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC. It gradually grew from programme relay services into full-fledged broadcasting in the early 1950s, and then into a strong statute-­ backed corporate institution, the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) mid-way in the same decade. However, discontent started to brew against the central radio broadcasting arrangement as the agitation for independence continued to grow. The regional governments considered the services of the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), the institution which would later transform into the NBC, unsatisfactory. In 1953, the Action Group (political party) members led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, declared the Macpherson Constitution, under which the country had been governed, unworkable, and walked out of the House of Representatives, the central parliament of the time. The colonial governor, Macpherson, then made a broadcast on the NBS, denouncing “the perfidy of the Action Group”. Chief Awolowo and his followers demanded broadcast space on the radio to respond to what they claimed was misrepresentation of the AG point of view, but the colonial authorities refused (Mackay, 1964, 58). The denial of a right of reply to Awolowo and his party members generated rancour and it was no surprise that the revision of the colonial constitution in 1954 provided for broadcasting to be within the jurisdiction of both the central and regional governments. With the space created, the government of the Western Region established a broadcasting corporation and launched the first television service in 1959. The other regions (East and North) along with the Federal Government did the same in the early 1960s (Opubor et al., 2010, 61–84).

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The Recentralization of Television The shape of television broadcasting ownership and control which emerged after the country attained independence in the early 1960s was a two-tier arrangement. The federal government established the Nigerian Television Service (NTS) while the regional governments set up the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV), Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Service (ENBS) and the Broadcasting (ENBC) and the Broadcasting Corporation of Northern Nigeria (BCNN), respectively. However, this arrangement changed within two decades of the post-independence period. Following the seizure of political power by the military in 1966, the federal government started to lay the building blocks for a recentralization programme in television broadcasting. First, it created smaller states out of the regions with military governors as administrator heads but within an overall unitary command system. Then, in 1967, the federal government-­ controlled Nigerian Television Service (NTS) was integrated into the structure of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) to became NBC-TV. About a decade later, under a new military leadership, the federal government removed the television service from the NBC structure and turned it into a full parastatal which it named Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). In the new framework, NTA was given the power to control all television stations in the country. The stations earlier established by the regions (later states), including the pioneers of the late 1950s and early 1960s, were taken over and put under the NTA administration. A military law, NTA Decree 24 of 1977, (effective from April 1976) was promulgated to empower NTA to function as the sole provider of television broadcasting in the country. The first Director General of the NTA, Vincent Maduka, explained the government’s policy position thus: The take-over came at the cross-roads between the creation of 19 states from the 12 states. One of the arguments of the federal government was that if 19 states developed television broadcasting services, especially where programming was concerned, Nigeria would have to earn foreign currency to procure TV equipment and the result would be non-standardization as well as duplication. The federal government also felt that there was not enough technical and creative manpower (cited in Lasode, 1994, 88).

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Liberalization of the Television Industry The re-centralization policy which took full shape in the 1970s would yield ground to liberalization in the decade that followed. At the time the military government was implementing its policy, it had also set in motion a constitution-making arrangement which would lead to the return of democratic governance in 1979. The constitution which emerged from the process provided, among other things, a window for decentralization and liberalization. Section 36 (1) of the 1979 Constitution provided that: Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference

Section 36(2) stated further that: Without prejudice to the generality of sub-section (1) of this section, every person shall be entitled to own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions. Provided that no person other than the government of the Federation or a state or any other person or body authorised by the President shall own, established or operate a television or wireless broadcasting station for any purpose whatsoever.

The implications of these constitutional provisions were twofold: the state governments reclaimed their jurisdiction on ownership of television stations. Individuals and private corporate entities were also entitled to ownership and provision of television services, though with Presidential approval. The state governments took advantage of this window and started re-­ establishing new television stations after civilians took offices as governors as from late 1979. However, the provision which provided space for private participation was not implemented and would wait for about a decade. But it was an important foundation for the entry of liberalization. Policy attention resumed in favour of liberalization in the late 1980s when the government convened multi-stakeholder conversations which led to the release of a National Mass Communication Policy document in 1990 and the promulgation of a broadcasting legislation, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Decree in 1992. The law provided for the establishment of a regulatory body, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC),

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and the licensing and operation of private broadcasting entities in Nigeria. The pioneer private commercial TV licences were issued in 1993.

The Digital Transition Nigeria’s journey into the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting was initiated at the multi-lateral forum of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialized agency of the United Nations for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), in the mid-2000s. Specifically in 2006, member states of the ITU Region 1 (comprising Europe, the former Soviet Republics, Africa, Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran) resolved that all countries should transit from analogue to digital television broadcasting by 17 June 2015. For Nigeria and other countries who signed on to the Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting Plan which emerged after the conclusion of the Regional Radio Communication Conference (RRC-06) in Geneva in 2006, the process for completing the transition was 9 years. The government of Nigeria began to take steps towards the transition in the following year, with a Presidential directive in December 2007, conveying approval for the digital transition and setting the effective date as June 17, 2012. This was followed by the setting up of a Presidential Advisory Committee on Transition from Analogue to Digital Broadcasting in Nigeria (PAC). At its inauguration in October 2008, the PAC’s terms of reference were spelt out: to recommend a policy on digital terrestrial broadcast transition, an appropriate regulatory framework, and a national broadcasting model; to assess the impact of digitization on the consumers and recommend possible government intervention; determine the quantum of expected digital dividend; assess and recommend on environmental impact of digitization, and advise government on any action relevant to a smooth digital transition in Nigeria. Members of the Committee were drawn from government agencies, including the broadcast industry regulator and media organizations within the country. It was chaired by a former Director of Engineering at the state broadcaster, Nigerian Television Authority, NTA.  The committee submitted its report in June 2009 (PAC, 2009).

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The Face of Government Policy The government returned the process to the public domain 3 years later, in 2012, when it published a White Paper which addressed issues in the report of the Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC). The policy provided for the splitting of broadcasting services into content provision and signal distribution. Television broadcasting providers in Nigeria had previously combined these services. The new arrangement created a new player, the Signal Distributor, in the industry and a pluralized approach to infrastructure management in the industry. Several signal distributors (minimum of two and maximum of three) were to be licensed, in an arrangement where the national broadcaster, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), would be the first and others would follow at later stages. In a restructured licensing framework, there would be two categories of licences, namely a content licence with authority to produce content, and a signal distribution licence with authority to provide the transmission platform for all content broadcasters. Whereas the duration of a content licence would be five years, that of signal distribution would be 15 years. All existing licences would be converted to the new broadcasting content licences, in which would be specified, coverage targets selected from a range of options: community, city, state, regional and national. The re-establishment of public broadcasting was prominent in the White Paper. The pathway for this would be a review of the planned commercialization of the two national broadcasters, NTA (television) and FRCN (radio); their restructuring into two separate self-accounting units (publicly funded and commercially funded), each being accountable to the regulator. Stations owned by state governments (second tier of government) were also to be re-structured in a similar manner. Reception of terrestrial television signals had traditionally been through the use of antennas, installed mostly externally in homes. But the White Paper recognised the introduction of a new technological device, the Set-­ Top Box (STB), for which it made provision as follows: 1. The design of the Set-Top Boxes should comply with the DVB family of standards, while the specifications e.g. free-to-air, conditional access, low-level entry, etc. should be determined as part of a broader policy decision.

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2. The government should provide incentives so as to attract potential manufacturers but the number of manufacturers of STB should be limited to a few. 3. The industry regulator should manage the process of selecting the few STB manufacturers. 4. The end-user price of the STB should be determined by the DigiTeam Nigeria from time to time, using economic indices (FRN White Paper, 2012). The development of the content industry also received attention from the government through mechanisms such as: the enforcement of copyright and related laws to increase respect for intellectual property rights; increased collaboration between government agencies involved in content creation and production; the recognition of creative works in tertiary educational institutions as a major source of local content; establishment of an award scheme for outstanding content provision; the encouragement of stakeholders in the industry to review the process of release of new movies as means of guaranteeing a reasonable return on investment, and the creation of an enabling environment (by the regulator) that would encourage the emergence of credible audience rating agencies in the country. The policy document further recognised the need to harmonize public training schools within the broadcast and film industry to operate more efficiently and increase the provision of specialized courses for the industry. Hence, it provided for a merger of the NTA TV College, the FRCN Training School and the National Film Institute into a National Broadcast and Film Institute, in a multi-campus arrangement. It provided for the creation of a Council for the Registration of Broadcasters and Film Practitioners, which would have responsibility to admit practitioners and maintain ethics and standards among broadcasters. It also provided for the creation of a Manpower Development Fund whose office would be domiciled at the regulator. The attention of government was also attracted to the issue of consumer awareness. The White Paper underscored the need for consumer awareness of the transition process and suggested a continuous public sensitization programme as well as for specific stakeholders on the various aspects of the digitization programme. Broadcasting stations would also be required to implement consumer awareness programmes with materials provided by the regulator.

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Consumer awareness was closely tied to consumer protection. The policy required that at the minimum, consumers should have a simplified means of recognizing the type of TV receiver they would buy, among other things. The various recommendations contained in the White Paper had significant implications for the industry. Consequently, there was need to give them legitimacy in law, particularly at the point of implementation. The document thus provided for further amendment of the main broadcasting legislation, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Act 38, 1992 (as amended) to support the new policy framework. Funding is central to any policy process hence the government had to address it in this process. In its 2009 report to the government, the Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC) had stated that “a total of N32 bn (76 million USD) would be required to fund the transition programme, excluding any subsidy on Set-Top Boxes”. It recommended that the government should provide a seed grant of N25 bn (60 million USD) over a 2-year period, 2009–2011, to be supplemented by other sources such as follows: 1. Utilization of funds accruable from the ceding of 72 MHz spectrum 790–862 MHz. 2. Review of radio and TV licence laws to enable a central collection of licence fees by the Federal Government 3. Offer of a tax holiday to companies which established broadcast equipment service centres in the country. 4. Downward review of custom duties for broadcasting equipment for a 5-year period from 2010. 5. Provision of incentives to manufacturers of Set-Top Boxes to encourage them to site their manufacturing outlets in Nigeria. 6. Provision of seed grants to the signal distributor for the establishment of a new company, acquisition of equipment and human capital development. 7. Provision of adequate funding for the merged broadcast and film training institute. 8. Use of a portion of the Radio and TV licence fees to create a fund that would offer soft loans to content creators (Presidential Advisory Committee, 2009).

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In its response through the White Paper, the government agreed with the recommendations but strengthened its position with some provisions as follows: 1. The local sale and assembly of broadcast and content creation equipment should be encouraged along with technology parks which should be located in the country’s free trade zones. 2. The cost of a basic Set Top Box should not exceed NGN 2000 (5 USD) at the current value of the period. 3. Importation of Set-Top Boxes should be discouraged. Another area for policy attention was the management of the transition programme. The government provided for the establishment of a Digital Transition Implementation Team, to be called ‘DigiTeam Nigeria’, housed within the Regulator. Its members would be drawn from the broadcasting industry and government agencies. Its terms of reference included: implementing processes such as public awareness, establishment of the signal distributor, selection of STB manufacturers, ensuring appropriate co-­ ordination with other African countries at the ECOWAS and AU levels, following up the process towards enactment and amendment of legislation; and seeking additional funding to support the programme implementation.

A Failed Transition? Challenges Facing the Implementation of the Digital Migration The relationship between policymaking and policy implementation is a vexed one. Nigeria, like many other countries, has seen multiple policy failures. The reasons for policy failures are varied and range from a lack of public participation in the policy process to poor implementation programmes. It is against the foregoing that the question should be posed: What went wrong with Nigeria’s digital TV transition programme? In the early stages of the planned digital transition, several milestones were met and 17 June 2012 was identified as the transition date. This was 3 years earlier than the internationally agreed date of 17 June 2015. The 2012 deadline was unmet, forcing a postponement to 2015 which was also missed as were others in 2016, 2017 and 2000. In early 2021, a new deadline was fixed for June 2022.

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Although these deadlines were missed, some of the implementation was ongoing. For example, while apologising and re-assuring the public after the 2015 deadline was missed, the NBC listed several components of the action plan that it had implemented. Among these were: 1. Working (with DigiTeam Nigeria) to harmonise the minimum standards for Set-Top Boxes and the transmission standards for ECOWAS member states. 2. Completion of the frequency re-planning and co-ordination with neighbouring countries. 3. Selection of a second signal distributor, in addition to the one which was to emerge from the NTA. 4. Licensing of a Freeview Signals aggregator, along with the design of a framework for the largest Freeview platform in the world. 5. Selection of 11 companies to manufacture Set-Top Boxes in the country. 6. Establishing an EPG/STB control system to protect the investment of local Set Top Box manufacturer (Garba 2015). There were also roll-outs in some parts of the country. The pilot programme was launched in Jos (central region) in April 2016, Ilorin (central region) in December 2017, Kaduna (north-west) in December 2017, Enugu (south-east) in February 2018 and Osogbo (south-west) in February 2018, Abuja (federal capital) in December 2019 and Lagos (South-west) was in 2021. The key challenges facing the implementation of the digital transition included: Entry of New Industry Players Digital TV transition in Nigeria spawned new players in the sector. The government policy split the core traditional broadcasting roles into content production and content distribution, with the latter producing a new entity to be named signal distributor. Other players who emerged included the signals aggregators, the set-top box manufacturers, middleware providers and call centre operators. The recognition of the signal distributors as an independent player in the broadcasting value chain has a significance rooted in history and practice in Nigeria. From the inception of broadcasting in the country, the

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broadcaster produced and transmitted content. Indeed, the transmitter was an instrument of competition in the early days when government held the monopoly of broadcasting and regional governments jostled for geographical coverage through the purchase and installation of transmitters. In later years, especially in the liberalization era, the licences specified allowable transmitter power for various categories of broadcasters to limit their abuse. In May 2014, the regulator, NBC, carried out a competitive process for the selection of a second national signal distributor. The national broadcaster, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), was to produce the first signal distributor while another, a private sector entity, would also be licensed. NTA went into a joint venture with Chinese PayTV operator to form StarTimes Nigeria. However, GOTV Nigeria (with parent company in South Africa) was already providing signal distribution. In July of the same year, Pinnacle Communications, a Nigeria-based company, was awarded a licence to provide DTT signal distribution. However, in November 2014 Pinnacle Communications took legal action against the NBC for alleged violation of the Nigerian government policy on the digital switchover. It claimed that contrary to contractual assurances, the regulator had gone ahead to approve signal distribution licences for three companies: Details Nigeria Ltd. (the licencee for GOTV), StarTimes and MTS Communication (a consortium of existing larger broadcasters). The process was stalled, only to be resolved about 2 years later through an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) arrangement and after a new leadership took office at the NBC. The resolution recognised Integrated Television Services (ITS), the NTA-StarTimes joint venture, and Pinnacle Communication as the authentic licencees in consonance with government policy. But it also gave Details (GOTV) a lifeline, which was to carry only the signals of its PayTV platform for a short period before subscribing to either of the two licensed companies. Details renewed its last license in 2019. The legal battles continued when Pinnacle was taken to court over the propriety or otherwise of its alleged receipt of a seed grant for its signal distribution role within the framework of government policy. The digital transition was also affected by gaps in skills capacity in the broadcasting sector. The national radio broadcaster, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) had a training school established in Lagos in 1957 to cater for the training needs of its staff. In 1980, a similar institution, TV College, was established as part of the structures of the national

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TV broadcaster, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in Jos, central Nigeria. However, for decades, both institutions suffered from a lack of proper facilities, poor staff welfare and inadequate funding more generally. The digital switch\ver (DSO) policy provided for a merger of these institutions along with the National Film Institute (NFI), also located in Jos. The process turned out to be long and bureaucratic. Transformation of State to Public Broadcasters Broadcasting started in Nigeria in the context of Reithian principles which emphasized the pursuit of such goals as geographic universality, catering for all interests, tastes and minorities, concern for national identity and community, detachment from vested interests and government and competition in good and high quality programming (Nicholls, 2011). However, post-colonial developments constrained broadcasters from pursuing these goals, often through restrictive policy frameworks. For example, the law establishing the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA Decree 24 of 1979 contains a number of restrictive provisions. Sections 6 (1) and (2) of the law mandate the organization to “provide as a public service in the interest of Nigeria, independent and impartial television broadcasting for general reception within Nigeria”, and to ensure that its services “reflect the unity of Nigeria as Federation and at the same time give adequate expression to the culture, characteristics and affairs of each state, zone or other part of the Federation”. Section 9 similarly provides that the organization must ensure that “its programming maintains, among other things, proper balance and high quality, preserve impartiality in respect of matters of political or industrial controversy and exclude materials likely to offend against good taste and decency or designed to serve the interests of a political party”. Evidence from media content monitoring in recent years however suggest that NTA content skewed in favour of the ruling political party particularly during elections. Meanwhile, Section 13 of the law empowers the Ministry of Information to give directives either of a general character or relating to particularly matters, to the organization which it must comply with. The law also makes it mandatory for NTA to provide coverage the speeches of key government officials. These provisions have the potential to negatively impact editorial freedom of journalists and the professional independence of the organization.

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Public Awareness The White Paper recognized the importance of public awareness of the digital migration programme. However, implementation of the policy seemed to have accorded little or no priority to effective public awareness mechanisms. The regulator instead focused on creating awareness around events such as rollouts in specific cities across the country. This was done through press conferences, media appearances, and press statements immediately before and after the activities, carried out by either the NBC or the Ministry of Information. This approach was both inadequate and ineffective. Whither Reform of Legal Frameworks? With the publication of the White Paper, it was expected that existing broadcasting legislation would also be reviewed to support the policy. Amendments were thus expected on the key legislation on broadcasting, the NBC Act. First enacted in 1992, it was amended in 1999, meaning that both exercises were done in the pre-digitisation era. It was however only in 2021 that a Private Member’s Bill (for amendment) emerged in the House of Representatives (the second chamber of the federal legislature). The Bill addressed, among others, key issues relating to the digital TV migration. Some of its provisions however become contentious, among them the denial of NBC to have important regulatory powers: it had no power to approve/issue broadcasting licences. The appointment process of NBC’s board was also restricted to the executive branch of government. There was no space for the participation of the legislature and other stakeholders in the appointment process. In addition, the leadership of NBC was denied security of tenure. Meanwhile the Information Minister was granted powers that challenged the independence of the regulator. S/he was granted powers to give direction to the Commission (NBC) with which it had to comply. Other contentious issues included the fact that contrary to the DSO policy, four categories of signal distributors were recognized. Among the licence categories listed for recognition in the digital broadcasting era were some online platforms. The Bill also introduced various restrictive licence renewal conditions (Daily Trust, 2015).

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Funding The government suggested a variety of funding options in its White Paper for the successful implementation of the DSO. However, it did not follow up on the proposals. After the country missed the June 2015 switchover deadline, the regulator, NBC, unexpectedly sold a 700 MHz spectrum to mobile telecommunication outfit, MTN, for NGN 34 billion (81 million USD). The regulator confirmed the transaction, citing funding shortfalls. The funding challenge also saw the introduction of a new funding source which was not in the government White Paper, called a Digital Access Fee (DAF), to be paid by every citizen to accessTV content in the digital era. Provision was made for it in the NBC Act amendment bill introduced in the national legislature in mid-2021. The bill went as far as articulating a sharing formula for the proceeds of the DAF: Signal distributors (40%), regulator National Broadcasting Commission (40%). Nigerian Television Authority (10%) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (10%). Another controversy emerged over the introduction of a subsidy for the production of Set-Top Boxes and signal distribution. The DSO policy did not provide for such as subsidy, but it was introduced in the course of implementation. This was however stopped in August 2020. The government claimed it was reducing its involvement in the DSO ecosystem to allow the private sector to take a lead in its development.

Looking to the Future What does this fraught process mean for the development of digital TV broadcasting in Nigeria? A starting point would be to look at the approach to policymaking. The Nigerian digital-TV migration programme appears to have been shaped by stakeholder interests and not public interest. Putting the citizen at the centre of a policy process strengthens its legitimacy and consistency. In Nigeria, citizen participation in policymaking is limited. This undermines the legitimacy of the policy, making implementation difficult. This has been the case with the digital migration process in Nigeria. There are however a number of other challenges that must be tackled to enable the successful implementation of the digital migration. These include the need to develop the human resource capacity within the sector. The liberalization policy of the early 1990s led to a huge expansion in the media industry, creating a need for professionals in large numbers.

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Digitization opened another vista: digital-era skills are needed industry-­ wide. Government investment into the provision of skill development opportunities particularly its training institutions, has been poor. This gap in capacity-development infrastructure and skills, will negatively impact the migration and quality broadcasting. The role of the state in the broadcasting sector in the country also remains problematic. The Nigerian state has since the early post-­ independence period tightly controlled the broadcasting sector. The Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) which Nigeria inherited from the colonial government at independence in 1960 was a public institution, modelled after the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). But barely 1  year after independence, the new government turned it into a state broadcaster. This has remained the case for the past 60 years. While legislation and regulation are important in the development of the broadcasting sector, these need to be progressive and should contribute to institutionalizing media pluralism and independence. There is also urgent need to properly resource the regulator financially to enable it perform its mandate effectively and independently. Current conditions constrain the regulator from functioning as a key institution in the development of the sector. Across the world, countries are addressing important issues that will re-define and re-energise public service broadcasting institutions: broadcasting in the digital environment, acknowledging the changing broadcasting audiences and developing strategies for engaging them, addressing commercial and political threats to public broadcasting institutionalising, the freedom and independence of the professional in the public broadcasting space, among others. The digital TV migration programme provides an opportunity for the government of Nigeria to address these issues.

References Daily Trust. (2015). Why We Sold 700 MHz Spectrum to MTN—NBC. Daily Trust. September17, 2015. Retrieved from https://dailytrust.com/ why-­we-­sold-­700mhz-­spectrum-­to-­mtn-­nbc Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1977). Nigerian Television Authority Decree 24, 1977. Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1979). The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Retrieved from https://constitutionnet.org/vl/item/ constitution-­federal-­republic-­nigeria-­1979 Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1980). National Mass Communication Policy.

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Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1992). National Broadcasting Commission Decree 38, 1992. Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1999). The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Retrieved from http://www.nigeria-­law.org/ConstitutionOfThe FederalRepublicOfNigeria.htm. Federal Republic of Nigeria. (2012). Government White Paper on Transition from Analogue to Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting in Nigeria, 2012. Garba, K. A. (2015, June 22). “When Will Nigeria Sign off Digital Switchover?” The Guardian (Lagos). https://guardian.ng/features/media/it-is-notnews-that-nigeria-failed-to-meet-up-with-the-digital-tv-transitiondeadline-ofjune-17-2015-but-the-question-of-when-exactly-the-countrys-digitizationprocess-which-officially-be/ Lasode, O. (1994). Television Broadcasting: The Nigerian Experience (1159–1992). Caltop Publications (Nigeria) Limited. Mackay, I. (1964). Broadcasting in Nigeria. Ibadan University Press. Nicholls, P. (2011). Organization, Ideology and Control—Founding Principles: The Case of the BBC. In M. Richardson & P. Nicholls (Eds.), A Business and Labour History of Britain. Palgrave Macmillan. Opubor, A., Akingbulu, A., & Ojebode, A. (2010). Broadcast Media Policy in Nigeria: Across Many Dispensations. African Communication Research, 3(1), 61–84. Presidential Advisory Committee. (2009). Presidential Advisory Committee on Transition from Analogue to Digital Broadcasting Final Report.

Index1

A Actors, 6, 30, 40, 67, 72, 121, 122, 144, 145, 195, 208, 209 Adapt, 5, 6, 20, 63, 68, 83, 101, 150 Advertising, 5, 6, 22, 38, 53, 65, 66, 68, 74, 82, 83, 135, 136, 139, 171, 175–177, 179–181, 184 Affordability, 12, 75, 76, 78, 82, 83 African broadcaster, 5, 11, 89–104, 123–124 African diaspora, 20, 24 Africa rising, 114–115 Algorithms, 19, 21, 56 Amazon Prime, 17, 51, 55 Analogue, 12, 14, 49, 50, 83, 217 Appointment viewing, 59, 61 Arab Spring, 3, 11 Arab states, 31 Arab television, 5

Audience, 1, 2, 5, 6, 11–16, 18–26, 39, 42, 49–55, 58–68, 72–74, 76, 77, 81, 83, 90, 92, 94–98, 100–103, 118, 120, 126, 127, 133, 136, 137, 139, 145, 146, 169, 171, 174, 177, 179, 181, 183, 185, 186, 219, 227 Audience reach, 97–98 Audiovisual, 37, 170, 179 Authoritarian regime, 138 B BBC World Service, 92, 102 Brand recognition, 19, 21 Broadcasting standards, 193, 202–204, 206 Broadcast licenses, 131, 139–141, 150 Business model, 1, 5, 53, 74, 77, 82

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Ogola (ed.), The Future of Television in the Global South, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18833-6

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INDEX

C Censorship, 29, 37, 44, 135, 137 CGTN, see China Global Television Network Challenges, 2, 4, 5, 18, 19, 21, 29–44, 53, 58, 64–68, 81, 90, 91, 103, 107, 112, 117, 144–149, 171, 176–181, 198, 201, 205, 221–226 China Global Television Network (CGTN), 6, 102, 107–127 Clientelism, 6, 131–150 Collaboration, 22, 93–97, 144, 185, 219 Commercial, 12, 14–16, 20–22, 53, 62, 68, 74, 102, 169–172, 174, 181, 184, 213, 214, 217, 227 Competition, 4, 5, 15, 17, 24, 38–40, 57, 58, 64, 65, 73, 76, 77, 133, 136, 146, 170–172, 177, 179, 183, 223, 224 Constitution, 6, 50, 140, 141, 165n3, 194, 203, 205, 207, 214, 216 Content, 5, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18–20, 22–26, 29, 30, 34–39, 41–43, 49–51, 53, 55–66, 68, 73, 75, 77, 97, 98, 100, 101, 104, 110–112, 135, 136, 141, 144, 148–150, 169–173, 176, 179–186, 194, 196, 197, 199, 203, 218–224, 226 Conventional television, 68 Convergence, 74, 139, 170 Covid-19, 2, 54, 65, 79, 82, 83, 95, 99, 117–118, 121, 124, 171, 180, 181 Cronyism, 131 D Data, 12, 13, 40, 42, 56, 57, 59–62, 66–68, 75–80, 82, 111–115, 120, 121, 124–126, 147, 148, 150, 162, 165n4, 178, 179

Democracy, 31, 40, 103, 120, 131, 138, 144–145, 150 Digital affordances, 55 Digital agenda, 101 Digital assets, 62 Digital consumption, 82 Digital disruption, 49–52 Digital economy, 118 Digital migration, 26, 52, 53, 57, 81, 83, 221–226 Digital platforms, 49, 50, 55–56, 60, 61, 66, 179 Digital revolution, 59, 71–84, 90, 100 Digital transition, 53, 217, 221–223 Digital transmission, 50, 53 Diplomacy, 103, 109, 121–123, 126 Disruption, 1, 49–51, 62, 65 Diversifying, 56, 58, 59, 65, 121, 181 Duopoly, 77, 173–175 Dynasty, 133, 138, 141–144 E Economic model, 32 Editorial agenda, 5, 98–100 Empire Service, 89, 214 Ethics, 204, 219 F Film industry, 30, 219 Floating middle-class (FMC), 78, 79 Free-to-air (FTA), 12–14, 49, 52, 53, 66, 73, 81, 83, 178, 179, 218 G Geopolitics, 119–125 Global audiences, 20, 22, 95, 186 Global media system, 169 Governance, 116–117, 120, 213, 216 Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 78, 80, 170

 INDEX 

H Hybrid, 202 I ICASA, see South African Communications Authority Industry players, 49, 53, 76, 82, 222–224 Influencer, 34, 43, 55, 89–104 Infrastructure, 3, 26, 52, 65, 71, 116–117, 135, 178, 183–184, 218, 227 Innovation, 5, 31, 52, 83, 98 Intervention, 20, 96, 117, 217 Investment, 18, 20, 21, 25–27, 30, 33, 34, 53, 55, 58, 65, 67, 101, 103, 108, 109, 115, 117, 126, 136, 163, 171, 172, 183–184, 219, 222, 227 L Legacy television, 57, 58, 60, 63, 64, 66 Legislation, 2, 6, 37, 134, 136, 141, 151–155, 175, 216, 220, 221, 225, 227 Leverage, 25, 67, 114 Liberalisation, 31, 52, 72, 90, 197, 198, 214, 216–217, 223, 226 Local content, 12, 14, 15, 17–26, 42, 56, 58, 59, 64, 67, 68, 140, 219 Local media, 12, 95, 97, 98 Local television, 11, 57, 58, 60 M Mainstream media, 2, 50, 51, 55, 145 Media capital, 30 Media ecosystem, 6, 52, 68, 74 Media framing, 111, 112, 126

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Media landscape, 4, 6, 49–53, 57, 59, 104, 131, 139, 150, 199 Media market, 133, 144–149, 170 Media oligopoly, 141–144 Media ownership, 6, 50, 139–141, 144, 150, 165n6 Media partner, 96, 98 Media regulation, 37 Media system, 32, 139, 149, 150, 170, 178, 197 Middle class, 15, 16, 40, 78, 79, 81, 83, 171 Misinformation, 103 Modernisation, 44, 173 Monetise, 66 Multichoice, 11, 13, 15, 17, 22–25, 57 Multimedia, 50, 59, 94 Multinational, 17, 25, 49, 57 N Narrative, 4, 5, 20, 23, 24, 31–35, 41, 42, 58, 92, 98–100, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 122, 123, 126 National broadcaster, 14, 15, 26, 91, 102, 172, 218, 223 Netflix, 4, 11–14, 17–26, 41–43, 51, 55, 57, 63, 73, 148, 179, 180, 185 New technologies, 49 O Original content, 20, 22, 61, 141, 185 OTT, see Over-the-top Over-the-top (OTT), 12–19, 21, 26, 177, 179, 180 P Pan-Arab, 31, 43 Patronage, 31

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Pay-TV, 33, 49, 57, 68, 73, 109, 172, 178, 179, 223 Platform media, 66 Plurality, 50 Policy, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 15, 30, 32, 34, 67, 103, 109, 111, 132, 137, 174, 175, 177, 180, 195, 198, 201, 202, 208, 213–227 Political power, 2, 136, 139, 150, 197, 215 Post-pandemic, 54 Production, 5, 11–27, 30, 31, 34–44, 57–60, 65, 94, 102, 136, 160, 170, 171, 174, 179, 184–186, 196, 219, 222, 226 Public service broadcasting, 227 Public television, 15, 170 R Ratings, 19, 40, 42, 54, 136, 176, 219 Regulation, 6, 15, 18, 26, 67, 133, 135, 170, 176, 178, 193–209, 227 Regulator, 12, 13, 194, 195, 199–201, 204, 205, 207–209, 217–219, 221, 223, 225–227 Regulatory environment, 18, 50, 52, 185 Revenue, 38, 50, 56, 65–68, 82, 83, 102, 135, 139, 176, 177, 179–181, 183, 184 Revenue model, 49, 50, 64, 65, 67, 68, 83 Rural-urban, 76, 77, 80, 83 S Satellite feed, 91, 100 Satellite television, 13, 18, 23, 31, 73 Showmax, 4, 11–15, 17, 19, 22–26, 51, 55, 57

Smartphone, 50, 52, 54, 60, 62, 67, 100, 147 Social media, 34, 37, 39, 43, 50, 51, 53–57, 59–63, 66, 67, 82, 101, 147, 205 Social networks, 75, 101 Soft power, 5, 89–104, 108, 110, 120, 122–123, 126 South African Communications Authority (ICASA), 12, 13, 15, 17, 18 Specialist programme, 94 Stakeholders, 6, 175, 199, 208, 213–227 State advertising, 132, 135 State broadcaster, 52, 217, 227 State-controlled, 32 Strategy, 14, 15, 21, 22, 26, 31, 49, 54–57, 64, 68, 96, 108, 109, 111, 119, 122, 124, 171, 179, 183, 185, 186, 227 Streaming services, 4, 5, 11–27, 38, 49, 51, 55, 57, 58, 63, 73, 148, 179 Structural change, 43 Subscription, 11–27, 42, 56, 61, 67, 68, 73, 75, 77, 81, 83, 148, 180, 184 Subsistence, 79, 84 T Talk show, 110, 111, 120, 122, 123, 125, 198 Telecommunications, 52, 56, 66, 170, 175, 184, 186n2, 200, 201, 226 Telecoms, 57, 66–68, 76, 77, 82, 175, 177, 178, 183, 184, 205 Telenovelas, 2, 11, 173 Television format, 3, 11

 INDEX 

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Television landscape, 5, 49, 56, 68, 135 Television policy, 6 Televisora, 169, 170, 176, 177, 179–181, 185, 186n1 Theme, 20, 38, 111, 116, 117, 122, 125, 126, 173, 200 Traditional media, 39, 50, 74 Transnational, 17, 23, 26, 32, 58, 170, 181

V Vernacular, 54, 56, 97 Video-on-demand (VoD), 6, 42, 55–57, 64–66, 68, 73 VPN, 205

U Upper-class, 40 User-generated content (UGC), 101

Y YouTube, 29, 34, 39, 42, 51, 55–57, 63, 64, 75, 96, 101

W Wahhabi doctrine, 35 Working class, 21