Last year the Government issued six free-to-air commercial
television licences and the owners were given 18 months to roll out operations.
The three stations which were not named, were then given an
extension by BAZ to pay their fees by June 30 and failure to that Government
will re-advertise the licensing.
This was revealed by the Deputy Minister of Information,
Publicity and Broadcasting Services Kindness Paradza to Zimpapers Television
Network yesterday.
“BAZ issued six free-to-air commercial licences last year
and out of these six only three have paid up licence fees. The remaining three
had issues saying because of Covid they had problems raising the fees, so they
asked for an extension and BAZ in its wisdom extended to June 30.
“So, we expect them to have paid off by June 30, failure to
do that the Government has no choice but to re-advertise these three licences
for other new players to come in,” said Deputy Minister Paradza.
According to sources, each of the six companies that were
issued with licences was supposed to pay $3,2 million by January 21 this year
but the three failed to meet the deadline.
ZTN is one of the six television stations that were awarded
national commercial free to air television licences by BAZ last year.
Other stations that were given the green light to operate
are Rusununguko Media (Pvt) Ltd trading as NRTV, Jester Media trading as 3K TV,
Acacia Media Group trading as Kumba TV, Fairtalk Communications trading as Ke
Yona TV and Channel Dzimbahwe trading as Channel D. Chronicle
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