Sunday, February 03, 2013

Tanzania: Can Community Radios Quench Rural People's Desire for News?

THE Tanzanian Broadcasting Services Act of 1993 has brought remarkable achievements in the history of broadcasting industry in the country, assuring private and individual organizations ownership of patterns of broadcasting which are licensed.

For effective adaptation and implementation of the 1993 Act, the government enacted the Tanzania Communication Authority Act in 2003 to pave way for three distinct ownership of the industry; Commercial, Public and Community. D espite the three forms of media ownership, much emphasis has been directed to commercial ownership. Even though the stateowned radio station continues struggling to become a full public owned outlet, a number of shortfalls can meanwhile be recorded. It has been reported that operation of the said commercial and public media outlets specifically for radio stations have raised undependable questions amongst the majority poor and marginalized communities. As some questions the validity of a need for public radio station whose frequencies ends hundred miles away from the village.

Majority claims the need for effective community radios to promote flow of information from one society to another. "We normally listen to foreign radio stations when entertainments programmes are on-air. For some occasions we get access to Swahili produced programmes from neighbouring Kenya," noted Sanja Sundi a resident of Ololosokwan village in Ngorongoro District, Arusha region.


(Source : Tanzania Daily News via allAfrica.com)

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