MISA’s Broadcasting and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) programme continued to lobby for the liberalisation of the airwaves, enactment of laws and policies that enable such liberalisation and diversity, as well as unhindered access and dissemination of information through broadcasting and ICTs . An overview of the current broadcasting landscape in southern Africa shows that radio remains a powerful and most accessible medium and there has been significant growth in the commercial radio sector. However, this has not been matched by growth in community radio or public broadcasting. Governments continue to maintain a tight grip on the broadcasting landscape with state radio and television dominating in 10 out of the 11 countries in which MISA operates. This continues to be a major challenge in the regional broadcasting sector. Those who can afford it, however, get an alternative voice from satellite and pay television channels, which have seen some growth. ICTs still remain out of the reach for most people, especially Internet access. Only a few countries in the region have telecommunication centres, which provide Internet, telephone and postal services. Mobile cellular telephony has, however, seen remarkable growth and provides the greatest opportunity for users to take advantage of converged technologies with some broadcasters beginning to stream their content on cellular phones, although this poses a new problem of regulation. Broadcasters continued to face harassment from authorities and MISA recorded a number of violations pertaining to the broadcasting sector. However, the situation is not entirely hopeless and progress has been made in certain areas. Opportunities for broadcasting reform in the legal, policy and regulatory frameworks are already in place in some countries. The challenge is to bring them in line with international, continental and regional benchmarks. REGIONAL ACTIVITIES Campaign for Transformation of State Broadcasters In the year under review MISA continued its campaign to transform state broadcasters in the region into public service broadcasters. Conferences to initiate targeted national campaigns on public service broadcasting were held in Botswana and Zambia, bringing together government, state broadcasters, members of parliament, regulators, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), electronic and print media, political parties and academics. Participants made concrete resolutions that will form the basis of the national campaigns on public service broadcasting. The Zambian conference was held in August, a few weeks before the country’s general election, placing the issue of broadcasting reform in the national spotlight as a result of media coverage. The Botswana conference, held in March, took place shortly after Parliament sent the draft broadcasting policy back to the drawing board. Research MISA conducted studies on the state-broadcasting sector in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Critically, the studies found that there was a lack of knowledge about public service broadcasting, which was mostly taken to be synonymous with state broadcasting. Thus, MISA has a challenge to mount public awareness campaigns. The studies also confirmed that state broadcasters wield the greatest power in these countries in terms of resources and technical reach, and that they thus have enormous potential to inform or misinform. In this regard, MISA has vigorously campaigned for the transformation of state broadcasters into public service broadcasters. 30 Annual Report 2007