The completion of the digital migration process in July, last year, has seen local television industry grow with several stations joining the foray.

At least six stations have joined the industry that was previously dominated by Rwanda Broadcasting Agency.

However, despite the entrance of multiple players, television programming is still largely dominated by foreign content, especially from West Africa and Europe.

Viewers interviewed by this newspaper said that programmes featuring aspects of Rwandan lives are few and only cover entertainment and news.

Betty Iribagiza, a city dweller, said during the digital migration process, Rwandans were assured that the digital platform would promote the growth of local content.

She believes lack of local content is one of the reasons for the low viewership TV stations are grappling with.

"We can see TV stations coming up but the percentage of local content is low. There is not much of a difference compared with foreign stations,” Iribagiza told The New Times.

Television stations and content producers have however blamed the low percentage of local programmes on high production costs and inexperienced human resource capacity.

Victor Koudou , the head of programming at Tele 10, a private station that joined the market in 2013, said budget constraints was one of the reasons for the low local content.

He said most TV stations are start-up businesses without strong financial muscle to fund the production of programmes which are expensive.

"Being a fairly new industry, there are not very many qualified local content producers which causes the cost of content to go up. Few stations can afford to produce programmes on their own considering that some have a challenge to cover news efficiently,” Koudou said.

Incurring high costs of production is not always relative to revenue, he said, hence the reason most stations prefer to air affordable foreign content.

However, Koudou is optimistic that as the industry comes of age, production cost will go down and commercials will increase revenue enabling TV stations break even.

Charles Kakooza, the proprietor of TV One, that began airing last year, shared similar views, saying there were plenty of issues to be featured but the local industry lacks finances and technical know-how to feature it.

"Rwanda is not short of issues to feature in programming, but there is a shortage of qualified personnel and funds to produce such content. It is every station’s dream to produce programmes and content that appeal to the public, but capital constraints get in the way,” Kakooza said.

Cost of local content production

Giving an insight into the cost involved, Kakooza said for adequate coverage of local news across the country, a television station incurs a minimum of Rwf1 million a week, which is high for most local TV stations as some barely make that much in revenue.

Kakooza suggested that in future, stations should consider working together to pool production funds or else they will keep carrying imported content which can be obtained for free.

Like Koudou, he is also optimistic that as the industry develops and more players come on board with experience and skills production costs might go down.

Rise and Shine Rwanda, a breakfast show on Rwanda Television co-produced by a local production company Legacy 45 Entertainment, has been on air since October, last year, featuring discussions on various topical issues, including news, business, sports and lifestyle.

Chantal Dusaidi , one of the proprietors of Legacy 45 Entertainment, told The New Times that one of the biggest challenges in content production was access to capital.

"Media production is one of those businesses where you need money up front to produce quality content that is costly, which broadcasters don’t always comprehend,” she said.

Dusaidi said the capital mostly goes into acquiring quality equipment, training of staff and production costs.

Citing the low numbers of TV commercials as another challenge that was holding back the sector, she said content producers have to seek alternative markets and sources for funds.

Local content is supposed to make at least 20 per cent of television programming, according to licensing regulations.

"Advertising in our market is small which makes revenue share agreements with broadcasters a challenge. Rwanda is just starting to pay for content and it will take time. Therefore developers have to look outside of the TV stations, and look into available grants,” Dusaidi said.

Mufuth Nkurunziza, the managing director of Guez Show, a graphic and design company that is also into content production, said content creators entering the trade with wrong expectations on the return on their investment had further slowed the growth of the industry.

To remain in business, Nkurinziza said, content creators have to identify areas and content that do not require much capital or advanced skills.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw