Participation and trust the key: New study pilots methodology for assessing sustainability of community broadcasters

A community’s participation and trust – the latter a product of transparency and accountability - are essential for the financial survival of community broadcasters, the findings of a new study suggest.

Sustainability eludes community broadcasters throughout the world, not least in Africa where, two decades after broadcasting reforms prompted a mushrooming of community radio and, to a lesser extent, television stations, most struggle to make ends meet.

Faced with this quandary, community broadcasters in Namibia, one of the first African countries to legislate for community broadcasting, and the media programme of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Africa (fesmedia Africa) decide to investigate further.

The subsequent study found that, in their struggle to generate the income for day-to-day running costs, stations become detached from their communities, and end up competing – usually unsuccessfully - with better-resourced commercial broadcasters.

The solution, the study suggests, is to invest in strengthening community participation, rather than diluting this vital ingredient in a bid to save money, as has tended to be the case, particularly when donor funding dries up. Such an investment would aim to develop a service that community members identify with and value enough to want to sustain it through donations, membership fees, advertising and services in kind, no matter how poor the community in question is.

 “What makes a community broadcaster worth sustaining is the fact that it addresses the specific needs of that specific community in a way that no other broadcaster does,” the study concludes. “Involving a diverse cross-section of community members in the production of programmes, and in the decisions taken by a station as much as possible is probably the only way of achieving this.”

As a viewer of one community television station involved in the study explains: “It (the station) feels like it is ours. It is a community thing. It is open to everyone.” The station in question is funded almost entirely by regular donations from members of its community.

In commissioning the Namibian study, fesmedia Africa also sought to develop a methodology that could be used to assess the sustainability of community broadcasting elsewhere.

The study’s objectives, sample and analytical framework - the latter derived from a review of international literature on community broadcasting and sustainability - were discussed and agreed to by broadcasters ahead of the fieldwork.

The analytical framework focussed on three main areas of sustainability – social, institutional and financial – and sought to assess broadcasters’ performance within each area against five key principles of community broadcasting: community ownership and control, community participation, community service, independence, and a not-for-profit business model (see Figure 1)

Figure 1: The study’s analytical framework

Findings from focus groups and interviews with community members, station managers, volunteers and board members (stations’ “primary stakeholders”) were compared with those of “secondary stakeholders” such as the regulator, partner NGOs, donors, training institutions and other service providers.

From this comparison, the study’s authors David Lush and Gabriel Urgoiti were able to identify key issues affecting the stations’ sustainability. At a follow-up workshop, station representatives discussed these findings, and adopted a plan of action that sought to enhance the sustainability of Namibia’s community broadcasters as follows:

• Re-establish the network representing the sector
• Build consensus around the key concepts of community broadcasting – including that of participation - among communities, broadcasters and other stakeholders
• Develop a common understanding about the principles of, and approaches to the governance of stations
• Assess and address the training needs of community broadcasters
• Strengthen the sector’s approach to advertising and marketing
• Build stronger partnerships with other sections of civil society
• Explore creative ways of diversifying income
• Engage with the newly formed Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN).

The Namibian study found that understanding of the role of community broadcasting varied greatly among respondents, the regulator included. This was despite, or perhaps because of Namibia’s early foray into community broadcasting, and the lack of a lasting public debate around the definition and role of community broadcasting.

Two decades, and a new law and regulator later, licensing rules still focus solely on the non-profitability of community broadcasters, a shortcoming that the Chair of CRAN, Lazarus Jacobs, appears keen to address.

“Our definition does not touch on the issue of community ownership and participation, and this is problematic and contradictory,” says Jacobs. “The regulator is open and eager to engage with all stakeholders in the community broadcasting sector to explore how the community broadcasting sector should be defined and, together, to discuss the necessary regulations that should guide the sector.”

The study also found that many broadcasters’ over-reliance on committed and enthusiastic young volunteers has, nonetheless, alienated older community members. While many young volunteers have gone on to work for commercial and state broadcasters, the community stations that trained and nurtured them receive nothing in return for their investment, other than the constant headache of having to find new volunteers.

Therefore, the broadcasters undertook to involve a broader cross section of people from their respective communities, in particular those whose motivation has less to do with employment and career development, and more to do with community service and the personal satisfaction that comes with community broadcasting. Stations also agreed to push the rest of the broadcast industry for subsidies or in-kind contributions as compensation for community broadcasters’ role in nurturing a new generation of upwardly mobile broadcasters.

For any further information contact fesmedia Africa: info@fesmedia.org.

Click here to read/ download the study

Click here to read/ download the appendices of the study

- 03 November 2011, By David Lush and Gabriel Urgoiti for Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, fesmedia Africa

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