South Africa Community Broadcasting

Executive Summary

With more than 7 million listeners, one in five South African radio listeners tune to community radio. The government not only recognizes the sector, the media regulator/funder allocates valuable frequencies, builds the studios and transmitters, and even subsidizes initial operations for many radios. This has created an enabling media environment, facilitating a tremendous opportunity in South Africa for community radio to be an effective component of a healthy civil society. For a list of these radios, go here. In addition, a new group of community televisions have also launched.

However, with the exception of a handful of highly successful well-managed radios, many of these South African community broadcasters lack the organizational capacity to take advantage of their positive environment. Their sustainability depends on developing a well-managed entrepreneurial organization able to develop diversified sources of revenue utilizing best practices of systems, people and materials.

Enterprise Solution

The South Africa Community Broadcasting "Enterprise Solution" project promotes an enterprise solution that would include tools, training, and ongoing support for enterprise capacity development. Focusing on radio & TV directors and sales managers, we intend to supply the components necessary for entrepreneurship. This program introduces the concepts of successful enterprise, develops the tools, and delivers the know-how in a series of regional management training workshops. It then provides long-term support for continuing enterprise development, and provides reports for measuring performance. In short, we develop "Radio (and TV) Experts".