THE Zimbabwe government has approved the commercialisation of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) into a public company wholly owned by the government. The Herald reported that the ZBC commercialisation Bill will soon go to parliament. The Bill intends to split the public broadcaster into two separate companies: one responsible for Broadcasting and the other for signal transmission. The paper said that the rationale behind the move is to make the ZBC concentrate on its core business of providing radio and television broadcasting. The paper also says that commercialisation would give ZBC the opportunity to make a profit and not rely on government subsidies. The ZBC remains the country’s sole broadcaster even though a new Broadcasting Act, which paved the way for the entry of private players, was passed in April 2001. The Zimbabwe government has not implemented the act leading to conclusions that there is no political will on the part of the authorities to open the airwaves. – Misanet