Sustainability

Most of Afghanistan’s advertising revenue comes from the country’s mobile phone companies, banks, and construction firms.

Supporting smaller regional stations remains one of the key challenges in Afghanistan as very little of the country’s advertising revenue spreads outside of the major cities.

“Sustaining the small provincial independent stations is critical. There is not a big debate in Kabul over whether or not we want insurgents here. While out in the provinces, they have been given no choice but to trust what is in front of them and many have not heard any counter arguments,” explains Mina Sharif, a director for the Cetenagroup, an Afghan-based media company.

According to Medley, one way to support such smaller provincial stations is to bring all of them under the umbrella of a national broadcaster.

“This is the job for RTA, it is not profitable for private media to put a transmitter in areas where they will not generate enough revenue,” he says.

The former trainer adds that Afghanistan could learn from the Balkans where more than 300 radio and television stations grouped together under the same network. In return from funding from Coca-Cola, the soft drink manufacturer was given country-wide airtime.

“Just as in Britain, in Afghanistan local media are always more listened to than national media,” Medley says. 

Internews plays the same schedule of programmes across its 35 stations covering health, environment and current affairs, leaving only the need for one or two staff journalists to cover local news. It is an approach that could be adapted by RTA.

“They can install the transmitters and have a non-governmental organisation help produce most of the programming,” says Medley.

As well as political interference, Afghanistan’s media are also under greater influence from large external organisations who now fund messaging and even their own media outlets. The result is that advertising costs have been rising accordingly, often pricing the local community out of the market.

Critics say the money would be better spent in building more sustainable local media outlets.

According to Reeve, despite many Afghan-run stations being set up, while on a recent trip to northern Afghanistan, the former BBC journalist found that for serious news most Afghans still turn to the BBC, Radio Azadi (Radio Free Europe) and Voice of America programming aired on RTA.

“I think it’s the wrong thing, I’d much prefer that just as with the Voice of America funds, Radio Free Afghanistan (both funded by the US government) concentrate on helping Afghans build their own sustainable locally-owned and operated media,”  Sigal says.

It was the goal of Internews to train people to make media outlets entirely Afghan-run. But not all larger external organisations have the same mission and when their funding dries up, the media outlets will disappear.

For example, in Afghanistan, NATO’s annual budget for media buying and production and distribution costs is 15 million euros. 

“In terms of European advertising budgets this is not very much (the total UK advertising spend is around US$20 billion per annum) but in the Afghan market this is a huge amount (total TV, radio and print advertising spent in Afghanistan is now around US$20 million a year),” says Nicholas Lunt, a former spokesperson for the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, even though the number of broadcast outlets is growing in Afghanistan, the country cannot maintain a daily newspaper.

The largest circulation newspaper in Afghanistan is Sada-e Azadi (the Voice of Freedom), a freesheet that is produced and distributed by the NATO-led mission.

“The paper has a limited view of the misery of everyday people in Afghanistan. It would be better received if it changed its line of action and wrote about people’s problems and ways they could be solved,” says Anwer.

Ehsan Bayat, an Afghan businessman, who owns Ariana Television Network as well as the country’s largest mobile phone provider AWCC, says licensing remains an issue.

“You could buy a licence to show the TV-series 24 but another channel will air the same show without a licence. There need to be regulations and copyright protection laws enforced; it is a must if you want the media to survive,” he says.

In some provinces there are multiple licensing fees for the same frequency. On top of taxes on revenue, property, and start-up fees, it gets expensive to expand.


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