Televisions: "Sit down, chatterbox!"

Tomás Vieira Mário"

The digital transition of radio broadcasting, and especially television, has made it much easier to enter this subsector of "media".

In Mozambique, TMT (transport, multiplexing, and transmission) serves everyone as a signal carrier, eliminating the high costs involved in purchasing and installing broadcasting equipment. In practice, anyone can turn on their TV, even from their small laptop in their garage!

Thus, the technical and financial conditions for opening a TV channel, previously required by law, became practically irrelevant. To cover these costs, it was essential that the TV project be well-founded and offer guarantees of profitability.

These guarantees depended on competitive programming, especially in the areas of news and educational and recreational programs. Therefore, TV stations invested in content production.

Now, the ease of opening TV channels has changed this paradigm. A first change is the possibility of opening thematic channels, that is, channels specialized in certain subjects of particular interest, such as sports, science and culture, shows, soap operas, etc.

But a second, and indeed decisive, change was the increased importance of content production agencies. In this context, the segregation of tasks in the television production chain expanded: we came to have signal transmission and content production services, separate from the TV stations themselves.

Consequently, and tending to, TV stations are "only" left with the financial burden of covering the cost of the signal (TMT, ZAP, DST TV, etc.) and acquiring content produced by independent producers. But all of this needs to be prepared; nothing falls from the sky!

These were some of the topics widely debated by media experts, regulators, operators, and technicians in the sector over the years leading up to the switch-off of the analog system in Mozambique, as part of the preparation for the digital age.

To that end, the Digital Broadcasting Transition Commission (COMID) was created as a multi-sectoral body to coordinate the transition from analog terrestrial television to digital terrestrial television.

However, as is typical in Mozambique, the debate was quickly hijacked by political agendas, but above all, by economic interests. The project went from public to private. One need only recall the economic and financial imbroglio surrounding the hiring of the Chinese company Star Times to lead this process.

What was the immediate consequence?

The immediate consequence of this lack of preparation was the mushrooming of numerous TV channels, which began broadcasting from… nothing, in terms of regulation, with robust regulatory structures, both legally and technically, to oversee and ensure strict compliance with the law.

Today we have TV stations operating in the most basic programming and ethical chaos. Without a written editorial statute accessible to the public. Nor consistent programming accessible to the public. TV stations that blatantly violate copyright, pirating international programs and series and, consequently, creating unfair competition.

But above all, we have TV channels without any socially relevant content. Lacking adequate human and financial resources, few of these channels produce relevant national programs.

Their journalistic content consists merely of pieces of social entertainment, suburban parodies collected and displayed in their raw form. And generally centered on the indignity and crime of poverty...

They don't produce news reports; on the contrary, they have reporters assaulting people in the streets with microphones, used as invasive instruments to harass and violate the privacy of others...

To fill long broadcast hours, these channels air lengthy programs from evangelical churches.

But above all, they promote what they call "debates," in which, instead of discussing ideas, they put on ridiculous shows, inciting hatred and brawling in studios, between pseudo-actors or self-proclaimed prophets, from makeshift churches in the back of garages.

There, too, arguments are instigated between erratic politicians and moderators who, again, instead of moderating—that is, promoting an environment in which the parties can exchange their ideas in a balanced way—incite personal attacks between the participants.

In other words, the rule is that the debate should reflect and expose pointless conflict and shouting matches.

And so, on the vast majority of these recent channels, all we see are people sitting in the studio for hours on end, participating in endless "debates," like chatterboxes who are always sitting down.

 What to do?

Now, the laws governing broadcasting and the Higher Council for Social Communication, approved in Mozambique for the first time, have already been published in the Official Gazette.

Subsequently, this July, professionals in the sector finalized the preparation of a fundamental self-regulation instrument: the Journalist Statute and the Regulations of the Professional Journalist Card Commission.

It seems that the legal and regulatory conditions are finally in place for the entire national media industry to begin getting its house in order. The time has come to pull the weeds from the field!

2025/12/3