Chad - Government domination of air waves increases
In most developing countries the state media are losing ground to private sector competitors. Governments have allowed the establishment of private radio and TV stations, even though in some countries these are controlled by individuals close to the head of state.
But in Chad, the oil boom of the past decade has simply reinforced the government’s monopoly of nationwide radio and TV broadcasting.
Find out more about communications in Chad by reading infoasaid’s Chad Media and Telecoms Landscape Guide
The Chadian government has invested some of its revenue from oil exports in building a new fully digitised headquarters for the state broadcasting corporation L’Office National de Radiodiffusion et Télévision du Tchad (ONRTV).
It is also extending the reach of ONRTV’s radio and TV broadcasts.
In September 2012, ONRTV was only broadcasting from six transmission centres around the country, but the government was building a further 13.
This ambitious investment programme will reinforce the domination of state-run Radio National du Tchad (RNT) as the central African country’s only nationwide radio network.
This is important in a country where only a third of the adult population can read and write and where radio is the main source of news and information.
About 40 privately owned radio stations have opened up in Chad since President Idriss Deby began to liberalise the media in the 1990’s,
But these are all local FM stations. Most can only reach audiences within a 50 to 90 km radius of their transmitter.
The government has not allowed any private broadcaster to establish a national network. Neither has it allowed private radio stations to use Medium Wave frequencies which could carry their signal further.
Private television stations are permitted in principle. But none have been established so far to challenge the monopoly of state-run TéléTchad.
Two years ago, it looked as if the government was easing its tight control over the independent media. President Idriss Deby promulgated a new more liberal media law in 2010 to replace draconian restrictions imposed in 2008 after a rebel attack on the capital.
But Deby, who came to power by defeating his predecessor in a 1990 civil war, recently showed that this new tolerance has its limits.
In September 2012, a court handed the editor of newspaper N’Djamena Bi-Hebdo, Jean Claude Nekim, a 12-month suspended prison sentence and one million CFA (US$2,000) fine for publishing a trade union petition that criticised the government.
The respected independent newspaper, which usually appears twice a week in the capital, was shut down for three months.
The only new channel of nationwide communication which is opening up in Chad is mobile telephony. By the end of 2011, there were 3.7 million mobile phones in use in the country – nearly one in three of the population owned one.