The Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (Cran) says that it considered the financial position of small radio broadcasters in its new proposal for regulatory levies.
This comes after the authority published proposed increases to regulatory levies and licensing fees for both telecommunication and broadcasting companies in the Government Gazette of 24 April.
“Cran has taken into consideration the challenges faced by the broadcasting and postal sectors and has therefore proposed lower percentages compared to the telecommunications sector,” spokesperson Mufaro Nesongano says.
Under the old system, broadcasters and telecommunications companies pay a progressive rate, which means the less money they earn, the lower the percentage of their income in fees.
The new system will require telecommunications companies to pay a fixed rate of 2.25% of their annual revenue and broadcasters to pay a fixed rate of 1.2% of their revenue in fees.
“The methodology was changed to ensure fairness by proposing that all telecommunications licensees contribute the same percentage towards regulatory costs, while broadcasting licensees contribute at a much lower percentage towards regulatory costs.
“Within each sector, all licensees contribute equally to ensure fairness and proportionality,” Nesongano says.
He says the authority has recognised that the change in methodology will bring about significant change, but that the proposed changes had been published to allow for comments and insight.
“Cran does not have insight into the cash flows of licensees. Input provided by licensees assists the authority in improving the draft regulations to ensure sustainability for both the sector and the regulator,” Nesongano says.
Broadcasters with smaller revenues will see their fees jump significantly, which the industry says will have an outsized impact on small radio stations.
“The newly introduced levy will potentially put radio stations under much more financial strain.
We would need to rethink our entire model and see if we can still survive or not,” one industry player has told The Namibian on condition of anonymity.
They say another major issue is the over-issuing of licences.
“Cran is giving away too many broadcasting licences, which means there are way too many broadcasters for the amount of listeners we have,” they say.
Another industry player says the regulatory authority needs to strike a better balance between enabling a plurality of voices and ensuring broadcasting is economically viable.
“The general decline in the industry has many factors, but what hasn’t helped is that the market hasn’t been protected economically,” they said yesterday.
With a small market, broadcasters can expect that profits will be a small percentage of annual income.
Charging a flat 1% of revenue as a regulatory fee takes a large proportion of the profits and will deter investment, industry players say.
Although the proposal is still under consultation, Cran says the current regulations expire on 22 June, and the new regulations must be implemented by then.
