In June this year, Philip Ihenacho, a London-based adviser with specialist financiers Afrinvest Securities, made an interesting observation that directly addressed the presence of one particular South African broadcaster in his native Nigeria.
Ihenacho used the word “dominance” to characterise MultiChoice’s stake in the West African satellite broadcast market. Speaking at Chatham House, a well-known policy institute based in London, Afrinvest’s adviser made the comment while acquainting his audience with the finer nuances of the “explosion of trade and investment between West Africa and South Africa”, in a speech titled Assessing South Africa’s Economic Role in Africa.
“The Johannesburg — Lagos/Accra investment/business link is becoming increasingly important and challenging the traditional London– Lagos/Accra link,” he told delegates at the institute, founded in 1920 to stimulate debate and research on political, business, security and other key issues in the international arena, and formerly known as The Royal Institute of International Affairs. “The South Africans are coming with big plans to dominate key sectors of the West African economy.”
The mobile telephony market tends to suggest itself as the most obvious example but it is not the only one. Key amongst other growth sectors identified by outward looking South African companies is the broadcast market.
Following the vicissitudes of sub-Saharan Africa’s various national liberation struggles, which were very often followed by the impositions of Cold War ideology, the satellite and cable television market is finally flourishing, aided in large measure by deregulation and privatisation in the sector.
At first glance, the small West African country of Benin, with a population of just 6,4- million, hardly presents itself as a viable test case for describing the changing role of broadcast media in West Africa. Yet, in many ways, the country’s advances are instructive and tend to offer an insight into the fledgling role played by independent television in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 1972 the former military officer Mathieu Kérékou seized power in Benin. For the next two decades the only news media available in Kérékou’s Marxist-Leninist dictatorship was broadcast by a modest state-run daily newspaper and state-run television.
In 1991 Kérékou was ousted in elections, returning to power in 1996. By then the former Marxist was presenting himself as a born-again Christian and reformed democrat. The leader’s about face also typifies the marketplace in which Benin’s news media currently functions.
Benin has a host of independent, tabloid style newspaper titles as well as two private television stations. “The vibrant media scene bears little resemblance to that of just a dozen years ago,” says W. Joseph Campbell, of freedomforum.org. “They were little more than mouthpieces for the regime, and by no means offered the critical reporting characteristic of the country’s news media these days.”
Sam Mbure agrees. “On the whole people have [more] confidence in the private media than the government ones,” he says. Programme Director of Kenya’s Network for the Defense of Independent Media, Mbure made this comment while participating in an online discussion hosted by MediaChannel.org, the debate aimed at assessing the unique challenges facing African media.
“Before the liberalisation of airwaves,” states Mbure, “the only voice in the news coverage belonged to the government-controlled stations. Come the liberalisation, private radio and TV stations were set up and the public were given an opportunity to listen to divergent views and information.”
The optimistic view Mbure sketches is not without its detractors. In their book Global Media Governance — A Beginner’s Guide, published by the UN Research Institute for Social Development, authors Seán Ó Siochrú and Bruce Girard note how deregulation and privatisation has resulted in a new market dynamic, particularly in developing nations.
Whereas previously television, for better or for worse, was used as a key instrument of nation building its traditional role is increasingly being challenged by the profit motive of multinational broadcasters.
“National allegiance, if any, is subsumed under corporate exigencies,” the authors write in a passage that examines change in the broader telecommunications industry. “[M]ost countries have shed all claims to their telecommunications sector as a matter of strategic sovereignty. One by one, national telecommunications networks, especially in less industrialised countries are moving to multinational ownership, their growth and spread motivated by narrow commercial goals.”
One such media conglomerate is MultiChoice Africa, the selfsame company Philip Ihenacho mentioned in his talk at Chatham House. An indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Naspers Limited, the group offers terrestrial analogue and digital satellite pay-television services in 48 countries throughout Africa and the adjacent Indian Ocean islands.
MultiChoice modestly kicked-off their African expansion in the 1990s, moving into the Namibian market first. In a questionable example of broadcaster acting as referee, current MultiChoice South Africa CEO Nolo Letele helped draft the country’s new broadcasting law.
M-Net went on air within two days of receiving its broadcast licence. Currently, MultiChoice Africa claims ownership interests in subsidiaries and joint ventures operating in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia and Botswana, and services clients in other markets through agents.
For Sam Mbure, the emergence of a private media in Africa has “put the state media on its toes in their political and electoral coverage and commercialism has given readers, listeners and viewers a choice”.
Citing Kenya as example, Mbure argues that the private media has been able to carry divergent views across the political divide. Not that Mbure is an unqualified optimist. He acknowledges that in Zimbabwe, for instance, the Broadcasting Services Act allows the minister to set rules as to how demonstrations can be covered.
Commenting on the problematic role of private media in recent and fragile democracies, Richard Carver offers an interesting and dissenting view to that generally proffered by Mbure. Carver is Director of Oxford Media Research and a consultant monitoring media projects in Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
Directly addressing the emergence of Africa’s private media, Carver says: “The problem that may arise — and I could quote ministers on this — is that once you get independent media (especially broadcast) they say, well now the opposition has its own media we’re free to use the public media as our own.”
It is not just the continued hegemonic use of state media by ruling parties that continues to concern observers; private media is also a concern — for different reasons. In his talk at Chatham House, Afrinvest’s Philip Ihenacho listed some of his chief concerns with South Africa’s vigorous entry into the Nigerian market.
His insights can easily be extrapolated, and are no just necessarily specific to MultiChoice’s entry into the African broadcast market. Chief amongst Ihenacho’s concerns was the worry that “South Africa will dominate and destroy local values”. He made explicit reference to MultiChoice here. Mindful of the ownership structure of companies such as Naspers, Ihenacho also queried the “facade of black involvement” by traditionally white-owned companies, labelling their advances as a form of neo-colonialism.
Taken at face value, Ihenacho’s comments certainly tend to suggest that not everyone on the sub-Saharan African continent is heralding the arrival of private broadcasters. While there is much suggesting that the broadcast media in sub-Saharan African is diversifying, it is by no means the panacea of a broken continent.
Aboubakar Takou, the editor of Benin’s Le Béninoise newspaper acknowledged as much when he told Associated Press: “Benin is in the first steps of democracy — we are still in school.” It is a truism that could be said to apply across many of the territories described.
MultiChoice Africa Responds
Just over ten years ago (April 1994), MultiChoice Nigeria was launched and has until recently been the only company offering satellite direct-to-home pay-television services. This happened despite there being no barriers to entry in the Nigerian market. Consequently, and not surprisingly, MultiChoice has cemented DStv as a strong and vibrant brand in Nigeria, which has lead Philip Ihenacho to describe the company as a “dominant” player.
The positioning in Nigeria is not only a natural result of being first to market, but is also due to investment in marketing and infrastructure and a committed focus to establish the DStv brand in the minds of consumers.
In a democracy, industry players are consulted about the laws that govern their businesses, and MultiChoice spends significant time and resources in obtaining licences to operate in each of its markets.
In many countries it has been the first pay-television operation to be licensed, and hence uses international legislative examples to make submissions to governments and regulators. In the case cited in the article, it is therefore not unusual or strange that MultiChoice made submissions to the Namibian government on broadcasting legislation, as this is an internationally accepted practice.
MultiChoice operates with local business partners in all markets, and in all cases these partners play a key role – they would be insulted by the notion that they are a “façade of black involvement”.
Businesses that expand into other countries do so not for political reasons or as an attempt to dominate, but for economic motives. It would be exceptional and unusual for pay-television services to be seen as dominating or destroying local values, as these services are not mandatory, or for that matter intrusive or influential — they are not freely available to all and sundry.
People who subscribe do so on their own volition and have the opportunity to select other broadcasters, including the national and commercial free-to-air channels, which are freely available in their respective countries. MultiChoice adapts to and respects local cultures, encourages the development of the local industry, and invests back into communities through corporate social investment programmes.
For example, one of its premium channel suppliers – M-Net – created a movie channel exclusively to showcase African films, the majority of which are Nigerian and are now seen across the continent. In addition, MultiChoice built and manages a satellite uplink station in Lagos on which five Nigerian free-to-air television channels and a number of radio stations rely for carriage on the DStv bouquet.
The pioneering spirit of MultiChoice has made it one of the first media companies to venture into Africa, and these ventures have not been without substantial risks. The belief in Africa (hence the risks) has to some extent been justified by the growth of subscriber numbers in the past three years; and the company will continue pioneering and adapting its services to meet the needs of communities and cultures in Africa.
This includes the offering on the bouquet of additional local and free-to-air broadcasters, as well as new French and Portuguese services, over central and Southern Africa.
Sean O’Toole is a columnist for Sunday Times (“Undercover”, Money Section) and editor of Art South Africa.