Malawi’s first broadcasting station was the Federal Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) which operated from 1958 to 1961 mainly to disseminate propaganda in favour of the British colonial administration. When Malawi gained its independence in 1964, government established the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) but the old British laws controlling the media were retained by Malawi’s first President Hastings Kamuzu Banda. The reason for this was that national unity and development required uniform agreement of the population and pluralistic politics and dissenting voices would impede progress and invite rancor and disunity. As a result during the early reign of Kamuzu, public policy making was centralized with the president dominating the policy making process.
Apart from the control of media institutions of Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, Malawi News Agency, Malawi News and Daily times, the presidency also controlled the Malawi Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (MPTC) which was under the Ministry of Information. Read more.
After attaining multiparty democracy, Malawi adopted a new constitution that guaranteed freedom of expression and the liberalization of airwaves. The relevance of these changes to broadcasting was that pluralist politics was linked to the existence of pluralist and diverse media systems as opposed to government and state monopolies. However from 1992 to 1998, the legislation over telecommunications remained unchanged and the first broadcasting licenses issued in 1995 were based on Civil and political Rights provided for in the constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression of views and opinions for all Malawians. During this time MPTC which was the state owned Telecommunications and Postal Services provider assumed a regulatory role of licencing broadcasters and Internet Services providers and Telecommunications operators.
Malawi Communications sector Policy and the Communications Act was first passed in 1998 with project funding from Royal Danish Government and Technical assistance from Britain. With the two legal instruments mentioned above, the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) was established. Globally this flurry of activities in the mid 1990s signaled a paradigm shift in global policy in the broadcasting industry with a call for international frameworks that compliments national regulatory frameworks. Deregulation and liberalization of the media in the early 1990s, saw mobile phone and television services both on terrestrial and satellite, internet and other digital services being introduced. Malawi passed a new Communications Act in 2016 and an E-transactions Bill to respond to rapid sector changes. Currently Malawi Has 83 broadcasting licencees of which 56 are Radio and 27 are Television stations. All television stations are on the digital platform which is operated by the Malawi Digital Broadcasting Network (MDBNL). Malawi has also licensed Seven Direct to Home licencees. Among the challenges and opportunities facing the Malawian broadcasting industry include: convergence, disruptive technologies such as over the top services (OTTS) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). Currently the Authority is in the process of benchmarking with other regulatory jurisdictions on how best it can regulate IPTV and OTTS.