(MISA/IFEX) – The first-ever independent radio station license issued in Botswana has been granted to Yarona FM, reports the South African Press Association (SAPA) news agency. The move has broken a thirty-three-year government monopoly on broadcasting in Botswana. Yarona FM will broadcast within a 40 km radius of the capital, Gaborone. General Manager Moraki Mokgasana […]
(MISA/IFEX) – The first-ever independent radio station license issued in
Botswana has
been granted to Yarona FM, reports the South African Press Association
(SAPA) news agency. The move has broken a thirty-three-year government
monopoly on broadcasting in Botswana.
Yarona FM will broadcast within a 40 km radius of the capital, Gaborone.
General Manager Moraki Mokgasana told SAPA that the station would be on the
air within four months and was expected to attract some 50,000 listeners.
A second license application is pending for a station under the umbrella of
Thari Investments, a group comprising investors from South Africa and
Botswana.
Since independence in 1966, radio broadcasting in Botswana has been the
monopoly of the government with Radio Botswana broadcasting news,
information and entertainment, and RB2 broadcasting mainly music.
The license to Yarona FM was issued by the Botswana Telecommunications
Authority (BTA), a parastatal concern. In terms of news broadcasting
legislation, an independent body, the National Broadcasting Board, is
supposed to be established and will be tasked with issuing broadcasting
licenses. The new legislation also proposes that the BTA act as the board’s
secretariat.
