Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
MEDIA houses in the country are facing significant operational difficulties, prompting calls for urgent action to address what officials describe as a systemic crisis.
The situation has sparked concern among policymakers and industry stakeholders who see the challenges not as isolated, but as indicative of broader structural weaknesses affecting all media in Zimbabwe.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Mr Nick Mangwana, said the current predicament was a symptom of global disruptions that had destabilised traditional funding models.
“Technically, all new commercial televisions we licensed in 2020 in President Mnangagwa’s Media Reform Programme are struggling to remain afloat,” he said on his X handle on Saturday.
“The break-even point in this case appears elusive.”
Noting that Zimbabwe’s media industry is caught in a financial squeeze, Mr Mangwana said traditional revenue sources — advertising, subscriptions and licensing fees — are no longer sufficient to sustain operations.
At the same time, digital platforms like Facebook, X, and YouTube provide little financial return for local news publishers,
Mr Mangwana pointed to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s one-time success during the 2018 electoral petition broadcast as a rare example.
“The funds they got from Google made a lot of sense,” he said, but added that such gains had not been replicated.
Globally, media organisations are facing similar troubles. The closures of Reader’s Digest in the United Kingdom and Canada, along with staff reductions at BuzzFeed and Vice, highlight the scale of the disruption.
In Zimbabwe, the consequences are acute. Journalists face delayed salaries, amid reports that a local media house recently paid US$50 as year-end compensation.
Mr Mangwana said a weakened media sector is also seen as a threat to the democratic process, with the potential for information vacuums and increased circulation of misinformation and manipulated content.
Some organisations are experimenting with alternative models. Others are diversifying into services like documentary production and live-streaming.
The Zimpapers Group has launched a digital expansion effort, known as Zimpapers 2.0.
Mr Mangwana emphasised the need for hybrid strategies. “In a low-income context, single-source models are perilous,” he said. Technology is also being explored as a cost-saving tool.
Artificial intelligence is being tested for news presentation and content production. However, Mr Mangwana cautioned that such innovations may also displace workers. “We don’t prefer anything that does that.”
Mr Mangwana called for collaboration across sectors. “The crisis of one media house is a crisis for all,” he said. He questioned whether current policy measures were adequate and asked if civil society and development partners could play a more constructive role in fostering resilience.
