Ethiopia Media and Telecoms Landscape Guide - Infoasaid

394. TelevisionOverview.Television in Ethiopia caters mainly for urban audiences. It is the most importantsource of news and information in the country after radio.Poverty, lack of electricity and poor reception mean that few people have TV setsoutside the main towns.Television broadcasting is completely controlled by the government.There are no private TV broadcasters in Ethiopia.However, an independent satellite broadcaster, Ethiopian Satellite Television(ESAT), began beaming programmes into the country in Amharic from studios in theNetherlands, in 2010.ESAT repeatedly complained of jamming by the Ethiopian authorities. It launched acompanion satellite radio service in October 2011.The state-run Ethiopia Radio and Television Agency (ERTA) operates thenational channel Ethiopia Television.This broadcasts from 27 transmitters around the country and claims to reach apotential audience of 25 million people – less than a third of Ethiopia’s totalpopulation.There are also five regional TV stations run by some of the government’s regionalmass media agencies.These are based in the following cities:Addis AbabaAdama (also called Nazret)Dire DawaHararJijigaThe largest of the regional TV stations is Oromia Television, which is based inAdama. It claims to cover a population of 15 million people in Oromia region andbeyond through a network of 16 transmitters.Dire Dawa Television, Harar Television, Somali Television and AddisTelevision(also known as ETV2), on the other hand, are much smaller stations.