SECTOR 2

2.5
Adequate competition legislation/regulation
seeks to prevent media concentration and monopolies.
Both the 2009 Communications Act, which applies to electronic media, and
the 2008 Competition Act, which applies to all media, seek to protect against
monopolies. However, in practice, Namibia has concentrations of media ownership,
which were operating before these Acts came into force.
Democratic Media Holdings (DMH) owns three newspapers, a radio station, and
the country’s main newspaper printing press. DMH is partly owned by Media
24, which is a subsidiary of the South African media conglomerate Naspers.
Furthermore, the daughter of one of DMH’s owners is married to the owner of
One Africa TV, who also owns an advertising agency, a film production company
and a publishing company.
Through its business arm - Kalahari Holdings - the ruling Swapo party publishes
and owns a majority shareholding in a newspaper, the digital satellite TV provider
MultiChoice Namibia (broadcasters of DSTV), a radio station, a printing press
and an Internet service provider.

Scores:
Individual scores:
1

Country does not meet indicator

2

Country meets only a few aspects of indicator

3

Country meets some aspects of indicator

4

Country meets most aspects of indicator.

5

Country meets all aspects of the indicator

Average score:

34

AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER NAMIBIA 2011

3.6 (2005: 2.3; 2007: 2.1; 2009: 2.7)

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