Articles, analysis and observations on strategy, media, streaming, broadcasting and technology.
- Recommended reading: when the voice of the voiceless is silenced – August 2026This month, instead of our usual market note, we want to point you towards someone else’s writing. Between 28 June and 28 July 2026, Nation Media Group, one of East Africa’s largest independent media houses, was forced off air in Uganda for a month. It has since resumed operations. Writing in the Nile Post, and… Read more: Recommended reading: when the voice of the voiceless is silenced – August 2026
- Zimbabwe – Six channels, one signal – June 2026Zimbabwe ended sixty years of television monopoly by licensing six new channels. Look at who owns them, and at who was turned away, and a different picture of the market emerges. Last month the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) published its 2026 State of Press Freedom in Southern Africa review, and it rates Zimbabwe’s… Read more: Zimbabwe – Six channels, one signal – June 2026
- Kenyans stop paying, but they’re still watching – May 2026A 79.4% drop in pay-DTT subscribers in a single year. Behind the headline is a more useful story about where Kenyan attention has actually gone. When we first saw the numbers reported on Tuko, Kenya’s largest digital news publisher, we assumed there was a mistake. A 79.4% drop in active pay-DTT subscribers, the GoTV and… Read more: Kenyans stop paying, but they’re still watching – May 2026
- South Sudan profile – Apr 2026Don’t overlook South Sudan as a broadcast market. Mention the world’s newest country and most people picture famine appeals, refugee camps and civil war. But that isn’t South Sudan today, as it approaches it’s 15-year anniversary this July. Since independence (9 July 2011), it has built two regulators, passed three media laws, licensed a national… Read more: South Sudan profile – Apr 2026
- No Time to Stream – March 2026
Showmax was supposed to prove that Africa could build its own Netflix. Instead, CANAL+ is closing it down. The Market Is Not Enough Showmax, MultiChoice’s OTT streaming service, was Africa’s big bet on homegrown streaming. It ran into a simple problem: it was just too expensive. Too expensive for viewers once you add the data […]