16 Feb 2020

 Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) chief executive officer says broadcasting in Botswana, particularly commercial broadcasting, is not moving at a desirable pace.

Mr Martin Mokgware was speaking at the World Radio Day commemoration held in Sojwe recently where they also launched commercial radio stations which are expected to benefit villages of Lephepe, Boatlaname, Sojwe, Shadishadi and Loologane.

“After 20 years of commercial radio broadcasting in Botswana, we would have loved to see commercial radio broadcasting reaching majority of the population. However, that is still not the case,” Mr Mokgware said.

Similarly, he said they wished to see local content dominating the airwaves and even penetrating the global market but that was still on a small scale.

“We have also issued several licences and authorisations for television and online radio broadcasting in an attempt to grow the market but a number of them have not been successful,” he said.

The commemoration, he said, offered the sector the opportunity to celebrate but more importantly to introspect and find ways to fast track its growth.

He indicated that however, with government infrastructure sharing policy pronouncement they were optimistic that the sector would grow, adding they were happy that infrastructure sharing had played a major role in enabling the commemoration.

As BOCRA, he said they continued to look for ways to facilitate sector growth and as such unrelenting to engage government to explore how state broadcast facilities such as studios could benefit the broadcast and performing arts sectors and create much needed youth employment.

“We are aware of continued calls for more players in the terrestrial radio broadcast space.

This is a matter that as a regulator we continue to carefully study taking into account enabling policy environment and availability of scarce resources such as Radio Frequency Spectrum,” he said.

However, he thanked their partners who were involved in the commemoration who included UNESCO, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Department of Broadcasting Services, Yarona FM, Gabz FM, Duma FM, RERA RADIO and THE CROSS TSN.

“Special thanks to Department of Broadcasting Services (DBS) for opening up to the idea of sharing its transmission site with commercial broadcasters. Today, DBS has further availed its temporary transmitter for The Cross Radio to transmit live on 104.4 MHz.

I encourage all stakeholders to continue with the spirit of working together to ensure that together we take radio to greater heights,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said the World Radio Day commemoration served to celebrate radio broadcast, improve international cooperation among radio broadcasters and encourage decision-makers to create and provide access to information through radio. ENDs