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evidence on progress made in the opening up of our airwa-ves.
I am truly grateful that the Committee accommodated me by rescheduling this meeting to today. The period between 26th March, 2012, which is when you made the invitation, and about now, have been hectic for the
Ministry which was involved in preparations for our Independence Celebrations, involved in the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) programme which also incorporated a State visit, and involvement in the burial of a National Hero, Cde Edson Ncube. Again thank you for the accommodation.
Mr Chairman, the opening up of the national airwaves has had many stages and facets. Legally it was triggered by a Supreme Court ruling of September 2000 which ended the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s status as the sole broadcaster in the country. But that judgment had the effect of creating a legal vacuum to the extent that it came when there was no broadcast law in place to guide the process of opening the broadcast sector.
There was a real danger that Zimbabwe would have drifted into an era of unregulated use of its frequencies, themselves a scarce and finite natural national resource, by persons taking advantage of the ruling. Such a chaotic environment would not have protected the core objectives of broadcasting which include the defence and projection of the national interest, of local cultures and values, of local expression, of local opinion through appropriate information, education and entertainment.
Mr Chairman, Presidential Powers had to be invoked to deal with the legal lacuna that followed the Supreme Court ruling. Through those powers, Broadcast Services Regulations were then hastily promulgated in 2000 to deal with the emergency situation which had begun to see unlicensed, unregulated and narrow interest-led broadcasts. By their nature, laws made under Presidential Powers last only for six months, during which time substantive laws must be put in place. This was done in
April 2001 when the Broadcasting Services Act Chapter 12:06 was passed by Parliament, and assented to by His Excellency the President, Cde R.G. Mugabe. This is the law we have today, the law that guides our quest for opening the airwaves. Mr. Chairman, I want to record this as the first major step in the direction of opening up our airwaves.
The new Act provided for the licensing of new broadcasters under a set of given license conditions. It also created an administering Authority called the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) to which it reposed management responsibilities for the broadcast frequency spectrum, and responsibilities for licensing would-be broadcasters.
BAZ was also tasked to develop a viable, vibrant, competitive, nationally and culturally-conscious broadcast industry which would be driven by standards and ethics, indeed which would be powered by technological innovativeness so services would be available to all citizens in the most affordable way. Additionally, the Act established a Broadcasting Fund to underwrite the development of the whole industry. It also created statutory local content quotas for all broadcasters.
In licensing successful applicants, the Authority is required to take into account the broadcast needs of the country which it must determine scientifically, while also providing room for the country’s future broadcast needs. Put briefly, the Authority is expected to:
Determine and gazette broadcast priorities, prepare and gazette frequency allotment plans, prepare and gazette licence area plans, invite applications for specific licences.
The ground rules and procedures are that clear.
Mr Chairman, guided by the law, in June/July 2003 BAZ commissioned a national survey to determine broadcast priorities for the country. The survey gave rise to a comprehensive report which was submitted and released in September of the same year. The report looked at issues of reception of existing services, content appeal and adequacy by genre, the country’s exposure to foreign broadcasts and content and, broadcast priorities by type of service and by area.
The survey revealed that huge sections of our population, especially those in outlying rural areas, lived in “zero” broadcast zones where no national broadcast services were available. Such deprived zones were also exposed to foreign broadcasts, principally broadcasts from neighbouring countries and, with the passage of time, to broadcasts from hostile pirate radio stations from the West targeting our country for political reasons. Above this zero category of badly circumstanced citizens was what the report dubbed the “twilight” zone to refer to areas where broadcast signals were erratic, were of poor quality and were limited to one or two services from the available channels. The third category described those citizens living in “dawn” zones, a reference to areas where broadcast services were reliably available, but from limited channels.
The last category described largely urban and peri-urban zones where full services were available. I must admit that with the current deterioration of electricity supply in the country, the reception situation which obtained then, has since deteriorated even more markedly. Our transmitter sites have not been spared from load shedding at all, in spite of the fact that these are classified as strategic installations of a national security nature.
It became clear from the report that the rural-urban divide, the centre-periphery chasm, we know from history replays itself in broadcast terms in our country. It does so in ways crying out for a policy response, indeed in ways likely to dent the thrust towards opening our airwaves. For a long time the State did not invest in broadcast infrastructure to reverse this legacy of colonial history. In fact until a few months back, the broadcast capacity in the country had continued to decline.
Thus the goal of universal access to broadcast services, itself the essence of the “right to information”, is far from being reached, is far from being real in our circumstances, the report noted and concluded. Progress towards opening the airwaves is thus a function of revamping and extending the current range of broadcast infrastructure.
Regarding type of radio stations preferred by listeners, the survey revealed the order of priority as follows:
National Public Radio, National Public Television, National Private Television, National Private Radio, Local Community Radio, Local Private Radio
It is clear from these preferred services that Zimbabweans, like any other people on earth, value choice and diversity in broadcasting. Additionally, while they would want to see private broadcasters, they are alive to broadcasting as a public service, which is why in their order of preference, public broadcasting ranked topmost as a priority.
In terms of content, the overwhelming wish was for local content, with additional emphasis on genre diversity. The established content preferences go a long way in reinforcing the notions of choice and diversity, as well as in stressing an important broadcast principle of localism. Zimbabweans expect national broadcast systems to be about Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans, indeed to be located within the national or local cultural milieu. There was also a clear wish for broadcasting in local languages, something our law is already alive to.
Demand for diverse local content broadcast in local languages means that Zimbabwe cannot go the easy way of simply licensing “false” broadcast stations which in reality are mere relay stations for foreign broadcasters and programmes. After all, one fundamental lesson we get from the history of broadcasting is that many does not always mean more. There can be numerical growth in stations but without a corresponding growth in programming variety, without any real choice for the listener, for the viewer. As a Ministry, we are very much alive to the fallacy of numbers, itself a basic problem of broadcasting in Africa.
The Ministry regards the completion of the survey a significant landmark towards opening of the airwaves and general broadcast policy development in the country. Its priorities for the broadcast sub-sector have derived from the results of this survey. We prioritise the revamping and expansion of infrastructure for carrying broadcast signals. This is both to achieve universal access for existing services and also to anticipate the coming in of additional broadcasters.
In our quest to ensure universal access to broadcast services, we have encouraged BAZ to treat licensing as a tool towards narrowing the urban-rural information divide highlighted by the survey. We are conscious that a licensing philosophy founded merely on numbers and on commercial returns, can very easily reinforce the broadcast disparities of colonial history which left our rural populace in zero and/or twilight zones of broadcasting. Predictably, private broadcasters will go for areas of greatest financial returns, and these happen to be metropolitan centres. A good broadcast policy must achieve universal access through a balanced and an even spatial spread of broadcast installations and services.
To that end, policy guidance and deliberate interventions become key.
Conscious of this goal, we have had to reprioritise the development of community radios. While the results of the survey put this category of services a rung above the bottom, BAZ has been encouraged to reconsider this position so that community radios become a strategy for bringing services to border districts which have gone without broadcast services before and after Independence. As we speak, Transmedia is hard at work in laying transmitter infrastructure for such community stations, with Binga and Chikombedzi already done. That way we will close the gap between the relatively saturated urban areas and the un-serviced rural areas. Of course such reprioritisation does not mean we slow down on laying infrastructure for other services in those disadvantaged areas. Quite the contrary, the five new transmitter sites we are installing and digitising are all located in border and outlaying areas, that is Beitbridge, Plumtree, Victoria Falls, St Alberts and Mudzi. Mr
Chairman, the laying of expansionary infrastructure for a different mix of broadcast services is yet another milestone towards plural broadcasting in the country.
Mr Chairman, I have made reference to community broadcasting as a priority brought forward in the national strategy. In pursuing this priority, we are very clear that community radios are and should truly belong to communities, who must use them as a positive force for community dialogue, community development and overall community building. We are also alive to the dangers of negative localism which could undermine national cohesion.
Consequently community broadcasting should be done and run by benefiting communities, and in a way that locates that broadcasting within a national context. They should be run by communities, with Government only coming in to lay the infrastructure which must be handed over to communities through licensable representative bodies independently set up by those communities, without undue influence. Community broadcasting is never for non-residents, whoever they are or may be.
Recent efforts by a well-known NGO to hijack this process will not fly. The agitating so-called Association of Community Broadcasters should know that theirs was advocacy work for raising awareness only. They will have no role in the establishment and running of community stations in any part of the country. Any individual or organisation wishing to assist community radios by way of resources will be required to do so through structures which BAZ has either formed or shall form under the Broadcasting Fund which is for that purpose. BAZ shall play buffer between communities with broadcast facilities and any well-resourced donors who might think money is the route to overthrowing community rights and control over broadcasting. On this one matter, Mr Chairman, we are categorical.
Community radios serve and cater to permanent neighbours. They should never destroy community amity through divisive broadcasts. Indeed, this is why political programming in community radios is disallowed by the Act. Those wishing to play politics must scale up the broadcast ladder to do so through national and commercial stations which serve fluid communities. Mr Chairman, the Broadcast Services Act provides for the following services:
Public broadcasting, Commercial broadcasting, Community broadcasting, Subscription satellite broadcasting, Subscription cable broadcasting, Subscription narrowcasting, Open narrowcasting, Datacasting, Roadcasting, Railcasting, Webcasting
The law thus provides for a diverse menu of services which will guarantee broadcast consumer choice.
Let me at this stage deal with two misconceptions which have arisen from the current debate on broadcasting. Zimbabwe’s broadcast law does recognise ZBC as a public broadcaster. That is a fact of law; it is also a fact of our present politics. ZBC cannot be wished away by anyone. At law, ZBC should be funded from three sources: from Government subventions, from listener/viewer licenses, and from advertising. Presently ZBC has not received any money from Government, in fact has not been receiving State funding since 2008. Yet as a public broadcaster, ZBC has been carrying out assignments of a public nature at its own cost, assignments which are non-commercial but of public service value, assignments whose costs can hardly be met from the erratic licence fees. Ordinarily, such assignments should be funded by Government. Yet this is not so. ZBC has had to survive on advertisements as if its licence is for commercial broadcasting. This is why its means are so slander.
Judging from its narrow sources of revenue, ZBC hardly passes for a State Broadcaster. Such a title is clearly unsupported and insupportable. Government has given the broadcaster burdens it is not paying for, and it is a miracle that ZBC has been able to stay afloat this far. Mr Chairman, when we make demands on ZBC, or even claim it, we need to be careful that our demands are not oversized, are not contradicted by our non-involvement in its finances.
Yet ZBC remains a critical player in public broadcasting, even competing against satellite players we already have in the country who cannot fulfil the unique services of national public broadcasting. It caters for millions of Zimbabweans who cannot afford dishes and/or subscriptions. The survey I have alluded to revealed that the majority of Zimbabweans do need the services of ZBC, the only frustration being that they cannot always access them. Let us thus not be misled by arguments of a minority elite with exotic tastes.
There is a false argument which seeks to equate the proliferation of satellite dishes with the rejection of ZBC. Dishes do exist in all broadcast jurisdictions. Their presence do not necessarily invalidate public broadcast systems. Quite the contrary, they define and sharpen public broadcasters as purveyors of national programming, indeed justify and make their need even more urgent, more insistent. Dishes merely attest to the fact that our people have become cosmopolitan, have become global. This does not mean they have ceased to be local. The real issue on this matter is public funding which has not been forthcoming.
I am the first one to admit that ZBC needs to improve its reach and services. However, this costs money, which is why the issue of funding is critical. At the end of the day we get what we pay for. This vocal minority complains about paying paltry yearly license fees to the public broadcaster, but has no qualms paying high monthly subscription fees for satellite services. We must begin to be responsible, indeed begin to fulfil our civic duties, before we expect or demand wonders from ZBC.
Mr Chairman, the one question which begs for an explanation is that if instruments for plural broadcasting have been in place since 2000, why is that the country has not had other broadcasters? This is a fair question to pose. I have already made reference to certain technical stages which BAZ was required to undertake before the licensing process could commence. These include determination of priorities, frequency planning and license area planning, as well as the gazetting of priorities, frequency plans, license areas and relevant regulations.
I am happy to announce that by 2004 these processes had been completed. Equally, I wish to state that contrary to the widely held but mistaken view, licensing for those services which did not require the completion of the above processes proceeded during the same period, often without any notice. These included satellite broadcasting, diffusion, roadcasting, railcasting and webcasting services. From that point of view, Zimbabwe has had open broadcast services since then.
BAZ has been inviting applications for different categories of broadcast services since 2004 when it made the first invitation for signal carriage. No applications were received for that license, giving rise to the situation we have presently, namely of one State signal carrier, Transmedia. Between 2004 and 2005, BAZ invited applications for three classes of licenses for national commercial radio services, national commercial television services and local commercial radio services. While no one applied for national commercial radio, there was one applicant for national television and four applicants for local commercial radio. None of the applicants met the requirements of the Act for purposes of licensing.
Both on the basis of performance of these applicants and through representations from interested parties, it became clear to the Authority and to the Ministry that the law itself amounted to an entry barrier. Equally, it became clear to both institutions that the State would have to play a comprehensive role in laying broadcast infrastructure in order to lower barriers of entry to broadcasting, and also to enable prospective broadcasters to invest in the core business of programming and content development.
The law itself needed to be reviewed in a way that softened its onerous requirements, while the State needed to be engaged for the financing of broadcast infrastructure.
The review of the law began in 2006 until 2007 when harmonised elections overtook the effort. With the advent of inter-party dialogue, the area of broadcasting became itself an area of inter-party negotiations, with the Ministry now feeding into this new effort. The result was Amendment 19 of 2007 which introduced a raft of changes, including to the re-constitution of the BAZ Board itself. The Board for BAZ which now required inputs from a number of interest groups and structures, including Parliament’s Standing Rules and Orders Committee (SROC), was only put in place towards the end of 2009, in August of that year to be specific. With lots of housekeeping to do and recurring uncertainties triggered by some players in the Inclusive Government, the Board was only able to invite fresh applications for national commercial radio and for content distribution in June and in July, 2011 respectively. All told, 14 applications were received for the two available national commercial radio licences, while 4 were for content distribution.
After all statutory processes, BAZ was able, in November 2011, to licence two applicants for national commercial radio services. The licence for content distribution was issued in April 2012. The two licensees for national commercial radio are expected to be on air within the statutory time frame of 18 months, not six months as erroneously reported by certain sections of the media. I am happy to say the changes to the law have assisted in opening the airwaves. Equally, I am happy to note that the signal carrier, Transmedia, is able to handle signals from both licensees, once they are ready to go on air. Again, our infrastructure-led approach to opening the airwaves has been vindicated.
In the same month of November 2011, BAZ made yet another invitation for local commercial radio services in 14 areas covering the whole country. It also re-invited applications for content distribution. To date, I am advised, 8 applications have been tendered for commercial radio, while 4 have been submitted for content distribution. BAZ is processing these applications in a manner prescribed by the law. Overall, the response for these latest categories of licenses has been sluggish, re-igniting worries of a spatially uneven outcome. Led by BAZ, we continue to explore ways of using the tool of licencing to obviate this undesired outcome.
Mr Chairman, regarding the licensing of applications, there has been vigorous debate, much of it not always well informed. To date we have had debate on the following issues:
The role, status and actual constitution of BAZ itself; The licensing process; The applicants who have been licensed to date.
I want to deal with the issue of BAZ last. Mr Chairman, our law requires that BAZ invites applications for licenses. Applications are not supposed to be solicitous. Secondly, the law qualifies BAZ’s discretion in the determination of issuance of licences, not just in the general sense of stipulating clear criteria for licensing, but also in the specific sense that the law provides for citizen’s entry and participation through public hearings.
Each applicant is required to appear for a public hearing at which the general public can gauge the deservedness of the applicant who wishes to use scarce national frequencies. This process of public hearings is well publicised to ensure widest participation. Indeed, BAZ adhered to this requirement and very lively hearings were held, as indeed more shall be held in respect of other appropriate categories of remaining licenses. Public hearings minimise any likely arbitrariness on the part of BAZ.
Public hearings give a popular weight to BAZ decisions. This has not always been appreciated in the ongoing debate on licensing which seem to allege unilateralism and arbitrariness. Significantly, in the last hearings, not a single participant queried the process as it unfolded. We only started hearing these reservations well after these public hearings, and even then from organised interest groups who in fact had been afforded an opportunity to voice concerns during public hearings. Mr
Chairman, such criticism is not honest as it stems from a desire to see predetermined outcomes. As a Minister, I have no reason to prefer the views of given interests at the expense of the general public who endorsed BAZ’s public hearings through lively participation. I thus dismiss the criticism with the contempt it deserves, more so given that it stands at odds with the sentiments recorded in the public hearings.
Mr Chairman, until Amendment 19 of 2007, the Broadcasting Services Act disallowed cross-media ownership on grounds that such a phenomenon would concentrate media power in the country in a few hands, as indeed has happened in countries like America and many others in Europe. There is clear evidence that without restrictions, the media industry is susceptible to monopolies, oligopolies and other combinations that hurt media diversity.
The Amendment sponsored by the three parties created a new situation where media interests in print and electronic communications could expand in either direction. The law as amended thus does not bar print publishers from expanding into broadcasting, as indeed was the case with one of the applicants. All print publishers were and are at liberty to apply for broadcast licenses. If they did not do so, they chose not to, a stance which cannot limit those of their counterparts who did so. I urge those who have raised this point to argue within the confines of the law.
The other criticism relates to editorial fears harboured by some quarters in respect of the new licensees. With due respect this is most preposterous. The stations are yet to broadcast. Why don’t we wait for them to show their real broadcast intentions, rather than prejudge them in this most despicable way? Besides, there is no clause in the law or in the GPA which requires that a given station be similar or different from an existing one. That is a market consideration and I, as Minister, cannot be made to deal with what is a matter of business decision by the licensee. To do so is to interfere with the editorial and business decisions of a broadcast enterprise. Sir, I have no wish to do that. The establishment and composition of BAZ Board is governed by Amendment No. 19 of the Act I have already referred to.
Let me stress that this amendment was sponsored by the three political parties in the Inclusive Government. It is thus a consensus amendment. The Broadcasting Services Act as amended identifies the President as the appointing authority of the BAZ Board. In making these appointments, the President consults with the Minister responsible and the SROC, but without losing his discretionary latitude. I want to stress this point which is often overlooked by those zealous to find fault.
In summary, the law requires that the BAZ Board which the President appoints should comprise 12 members broken down as follows:
Two with experience or qualification in broadcast technology and content respectively; One Chief nominated by the Council of Chiefs; A registered legal practitioner of not less than five years’ standing; A registered public accountant of not less than five years’ standing; A representative of churches or other religious bodies chosen from a list of nominees submitted by groups considered by the Minister to be representative; Three members appointed from a list of six from SROC.
Three other members
The Board should have a minimum of four women: one from three coming from recommendations from the SROC, and three from the remaining nine.
Mr Chairman, the intentions of the Legislature in respect of this portion are very clear. The Board is meant to have two interest group representation by way of traditional leadership and by way of religious groups. From this representation, one reads a clear intention to ensure that broadcasting in the country advances our culture and our sense of morality. The Board is meant to be alive to the politics of the country, which is why it brings in a Committee of Parliament in the nomination process.
Thirdly, the law is gender-sensitive, which is why it insists on a numerical minimum by way of the representation of women. Fourthly, the law insists on certain skills: legal and accounting skills ostensibly for good housekeeping and more fundamentally because of the nature of processes leading to licencing itself; two broadcast skills (technology and content) to ensure decisions of the Board are consistent with concerns of the craft. I want to stress that this part of the law solicits for skills
and not interest group representation as has been suggested in some obviously mistaken quarters.
There is no good reason for the law to insist on representation of an association accountants as a professional interest group. Or on representation of lawyers for that matter. If this was the case, the law would have specifically required the Minister to ask for inputs from such associations the same way it does in respect of religious and traditional leaders. Instead the law concerns itself with qualifications and the quality of skills associated with given qualifications it wants incorporated on the Board.
Mr Chairman, BAZ has a Board in place, a fully constituted Board appointed strictly in terms of the law. It has three appointees drawn from the six tendered by the SROC. Of these three, one is a woman as required by the law. It has one accountant with more that five years in practice. It has a lawyer, again with more than five years in practice. It has a nominee from the Chief’s Council; it has a nominee from a representative association of religious groups in the country.
It has two appointees with solid grounding in broadcast technology and broadcast content. And from the nine outside appointees from SROC, there are three women Board members, to bring the total to four. The Board was appointed by the President on 7th August, 2009. It is in the middle of its term. As the supervising Minister, I am happy with the Board’s performance.
Following this appointment, there was some confusion regarding whether or not the Board had been properly constituted. Unfortunately this confusion lay elsewhere in the realm of politics, with no one approaching the Ministry for clarification and guidance. The consequence of this not-always-well-informed discussion were mistaken communications which pretended to carry the aura of directives, mainly from persons who are not given status as persons by the relevant law. It was only on 11th July, 2011 that this needless confusion was definitively cleared in a meeting with the President, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara. To conclude Mr. Chairman, BAZ Board is lawfully in place, is doing its work satisfactorily and is in the middle of its term. There is neither reason nor intention to abridge its term.
Looking ahead, Mr Chairman, our main priority is to see through broadcasting infrastructural modernisation and expansion. We must rapidly move to digitalise our broadcast infrastructure so we are done with this technological migration programme by 2013 which is our deadline in Sadc, and certainly by 2015, which is the world deadline. The migration ensures more broadcast capacity and therefore more opening of the airwaves.
The migration upgrades the quality of broadcast services in the country. The migration brings us closer to our elusive goal of universal service. Indeed, the migration brings us in harmony with the rest of the world. Any broadcaster who is still operating on the inefficient analogue system after 2015, will not enjoy any protection from international law and decisions. We reckon that the whole migration and expansion programme will cost about US$120 million. Time is of essence and the paltry disbursements we have been getting from Treasury will not see us meet this strict time-table.
Mr Chairman, we must move rapidly towards developing a content production industry. This is a matter of skills development, production infrastructure needing meaningful funding for across-genre productions. The Film School, Zimbabwe Film and Television School of Southern Africa (ZIFTESSA), is already hard at work in developing skills for content production. If the country is struggling to produce 75 percent local content quota for just two television channels, the situation will only get worse when we fully liberalise on digital platforms. We need a buoyant content production sector, something India and Nigeria have successfully done to great employment opportunities.
Thirdly Mr Chairman, we need to keep looking at the law to gauge its adequacy against rapid changes in broadcast technologies. Already, it is becoming apparent that our law comes short against current realities of broadcasting. This can only get worse as we move into the future. Our regulator must be equipped to effectively monitor programmes for full compliance, more so when the potential for offensive material finding its way into our country grows. Broadcasting is a powerful medium and society, principally our minors, need good protection.
Fourthly, we need to deal with the funding challenges of public broadcasting. The present situation of zero funding cannot be a model for public broadcasting funding. It has no parallel in the world and we are not about to stumble on a novel model.
Mr Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity given.
I thank you.
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