SECTOR 2 Broadcasting Due to the country’s geography, poor rural road network and the fact that a majority of the population lives in poverty (63.8 per cent living below the poverty line of US$1 a day6); radio plays a very important role and is by far the most widespread medium in the country. Most people in Zambia receive only ZNBC and a community radio station. Each of the nine provinces has two or three community radio stations, which have a limited range, usually broadcasting only within a district. “In rural areas, people will climb a tree or a go up a hill to get a signal.” Broadcasting has continued to grow in the past two years. In 2009, there were 37 radio stations, whereas there are now 40. The country’s radio stations include the three state-owned stations, ZNBC 1, 2 and 4; 11 commercial stations; 16 community stations; seven religious stations, most of which are Catholic owned or sponsored; and three educational stations, including UNZA Radio from the University of Zambia, Parliament Radio and Hone FM from the Evelyn Hone College. The number of television stations has grown in the past two years from seven to nine. The current television stations are the stateowned ZNBC; the private Copperbelt Television (CB TV), which broadcasts only within the Copperbelt area, around Ndola; the private Central Broadcasting Company (CBC), which broadcasts within a very limited area of Lusaka; the free-to-air Mobi TV, which broadcasts in Lusaka; and the private broadcaster Muvi TV, which recently expanded its transmission countrywide via the DSTV satellite bouquet. Two new local private television stations are North Western TV and Africa Unite, a second channel of Muvi TV, available via a DSTV satellite decoder. Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN), a Christian station headquartered in the USA, also broadcasts in Zambia, as does Multichoice Zambia, which offers the South African satellite subscription service DSTV. Attempts are also being made to establish a new television station for Ndola, the Copperbelt capital. Community radio stations also continue to grow in Zambia, with three new stations coming on board in the last two years, including Walamo and Mpika community radio stations, both in the Northern Province and Itezhi-Tezhi in Central Province. Breeze FM from Chipata has also expanded its coverage and is also available online. Community radio stations, mostly located in rural districts and transmitting to a small, defined community, broadcast mainly in English as well as one of the main local languages, affording rural audiences access to information in their mother tongues. As TV and print media are otherwise mostly in English, the role of community radio stations is vital as one-fifth of all Zambians over the age of 15 are not literate in English. 6 UN Data, accessed on http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=WHO&f=inID%3ASDEC15 28 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ZAMBIA 2011