SECTOR 3 Broadcasting regulation is transparent and independent; the state broadcaster is transformed into a truly public broadcaster. 3.1 Broadcasting legislation has been passed and is implemented that provides for a conducive environment for public, commercial and community broadcasting. The Broadcasting Proclamation 1999 established the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority as “an autonomous Federal Administrative Agency having its own legal personality”, with the objective of licensing broadcasting services. The Broadcasting Service Proclamation 2007 refined this act and assigns the authority the more specific task of ensuring “the expansion of a high standard, prompt and reliable broadcasting service that can contribute to political, social and economic development and to regulate the same.” Article 16 of the act states that “categories of broadcasting services shall be public, commercial and community broadcasting services”. The broadcasting proclamation expressly prohibits the issuing of broadcasting licences to a political organisation or to an organisation of which a political organisation, a member of a political party’s supreme leadership or of its management at any level, is a shareholder. Although the legal basis for an environment conducive to the development of the three sectors of broadcasting thus seems in place, the actual processes to make this happen are very slow. For example, it took one of the panellists three years to get a licence for a radio station. Since then two more private and nine community radio stations have been licensed. There was disagreement within the panel on the pace of licensing new broadcasting services and its effect. Some said this could only be done gradually, in step with the gradual democratisation of the country. Others argued that more services could contribute to the speeding up of democratisation. 38 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ETHIOPIA 2010