Location
Macra Director General, Daud Suleman has advised Southern African radio broadcasting stations to embrace the digital shift and take advantage of the opportunities to attain leverage in the media space. Suleman was speaking at Radio Broadcasting Convention Africa 2025, which is taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Suleman said the media space is shifting towards digital convergence, where media platforms such as traditional radio and television, sports gaming, and social media are merging, providing consumers with easy access to content. He noted that while the convergence of media technology has simplified how consumers can get information, it is also posing challenges to the consumers and the regulator as there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation.
“Most of the information on the converged sites lack fact checking, and society is being fed with unverified information, putting the public at a risk of being misinformed,” Suleman said. On the challenges regarding regulators, Suleman said regulation is always behind innovation and it has proven difficult to regulate new innovations but MACRA in conjunction with Malawi government has drafted digital laws that will govern the digital space in Malawi. He added that tools to guard against misinformation are currently being implemented.
The MACRA Director General also encouraged Southern Africa radio broadcasters to form partnerships on content sharing since they have a huge audience with almost similar content taste and appetite hence audiences can easily relate to content coming from any Southern African country.
Suleman advised the broadcasters to utilise opportunities that have come along with digitilization, such as increased audience coverage, new revenue streams, and the use of artificial intelligence to align with the fast-moving digital technology
The Radio Broadcating Convention Africa has attracted broadcasters, media managers, policy makers, regulators, business leaders and academicians, among others.