State of Broadcasting and
Digital Migration in the Region

https://zimbabwe.misa.org

broadcasting migration facilitated universal access to information. National coverage of only
14% to more than 50% on the terrestrial platform was very significant. The 100% access was
achieved through the satellite platform.
•

The DTT industry has increased employment from activities from call centres, DTT receiver
dealers and content developers. The pay TV has grown significantly and immensely benefitting
local artists

Regulatory Thrust
There is need to achieve interoperability of receivers from different service providers by deployment
of conditional access modules. Currently one has to get separate decoders to access different services
from the different service providers but once the CAM system is deployed then one uses one decoder
to access TV channels from all service providers. The thrust is to create competition based on content
and not on technology.

Post DTT Challenges in Tanzania
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set top boxes are not yet interoperable, currently one buys several STBs to access all services
from the different content service providers ( CSPs)

•

Sustainability of free to air channels is at risk, most CSPs want to convert their channels to pay
TV channels due to decrease in commercial adverts.

•

Most broadcasters are unable to pay the transmission fees, they are failing to break even and
finding it difficult to sustain operations.

•

DTT network cannot practically be rolled out to achieve 100% geographical coverage. There
still remains a significant lot who will continue to get services from satellite DTH.

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