Pretoria - There has been a marked growth in the country’s community media over the years and government continues to increase its ad spend in this sector, Media Development and Diversity Agency CEO, Lumko Mtimde, said on Friday.
“There has certainly been growth and that can be seen with the growth in the ad spend by government in this sector,” Mtimde said at a media briefing in Pretoria.
He said, however, there were still challenges for some small community media groups as the environment was not enabling for them. In the past two financial years, government advertising totalling R60 million was allocated to community and small commercial media.
The MDDA held a two-day community and small commercial media forum which concluded that the creation and maintenance of vibrant and viable community and small commercial media is a necessary part of transforming South Africa’s media industry.
GCIS Acting CEO Phumla Williams said: “Rural communities that are under-serviced by large-scale commercial media – which are generally concentrated in major cities and towns – have limited access to public information and are limited in adding their views and aspirations to public discourse in the country.”
The forum reflected on the state of community and small commercial media in the country, and the success of MDDA interventions and initiatives in this area over the past decade.
“The forum also looked at how GCIS and the MDDA could improve its collaboration with this part of the media sector, and how community and small commercial media could collaborate better to grow the sector and involve a greater number of South Africans,” Williams said.
The forum formed part of the 10th anniversary of the MDDA which has since 1993 supported more than 480 media projects countrywide, focusing on historically disadvantaged communities, using indigenous languages. –SAnews.gov.za
