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Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Reporter
The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe has issued local commercial radio broadcasting service licences to eight companies. Zimpaper’s Diamond FM has been licensed to broadcast in Mutare, while AB Communications’ Gogogoi FM and FAYA FM will be broadcasting in Masvingo and Gweru respectively.

BAZ has also licensed Fairtalk Communications’ two stations — Breeze FM to broadcast in Victoria Falls and Skyz Metro FM in Bulawayo.

Other companies licensed are Ray of Hope trading as YA FM, which will be broadcasting from Zvishavane and Kingstons’ two radio stations KE100.4 FM and Nyaminyami FM, which will be broadcasting in Harare and Kariba respectively.

In a statement yesterday, BAZ board chairman Dr Tafataona Mahoso, said licensed radio stations were expected to be on air as soon as possible.

“In order to justify the trust that the public has bestowed upon the new licensees over the use of a public finite resource, the radio frequency spectrum, the licensees are expected to be on air as soon as possible,” Dr Mahoso said.

BAZ, Dr Mahoso said, had invited applications for the provision of local commercial radio broadcasting services in 25 areas of the country and received 21 applications for only nine areas.

He said out of the 21 applicants, 18 were shortlisted as the other three failed to meet the qualification criteria in terms of the Broadcasting Services Act.

Dr Mahoso said of the 18 applicants who were shortlisted, five applicants failed to pay the statutory public inquiry fees while one applicant withdrew from the licensing process.

“Twelve applicants therefore appeared before the authority in public inquiries, as required in terms of the Broadcasting Services Act, to determine the suitability of the applicants to be licensed,” he said.

Three applicants namely Carryslot Investments trading as Capital FM, Yes Frequency Modulation trading as Yes FM and Kingstons trading as KE100.4 FM sought to broadcast in Harare while in Bulawayo Fairtalk Communications trading as Skyz Metro FM, Skies Radio trading as Skies FM and Carryslot Investments were shortlisted for public inquiries.

Apart from Harare, Kingstons was also shortlisted in Kariba while Fairtalk Communications was shortlisted for Victoria Falls.

AB Communications was also shortlisted for the public inquiries in Masvingo and Gweru, Ray of Hope in Zvishavane, Zimpapers in Mutare.

“The authority conducted the public inquiries for each of the twelve applicants and these public inquiries were held in the areas in which the applicants applied to provide the broadcasting service. This enabled members of the public in those areas to assist the authority in determining the suitability of an applicant to be issued with a licence,” he said.

Dr Mahoso said during the public hearings, all applicants were also given an opportunity to present their proposals to the public and to respond to questions from the authority’s commissioner as well as from the public.

He said following completion of the public inquiries, the authority then conducted a thorough and final assessment of the applicants leading to the determination of who was to be licensed.

“This determination by the authority was guided by the proposal submitted by each applicant for a particular licence area, the outcome of the public inquiries and the guidance provided in terms of the objectives of the Broadcasting Services Act,” he said.

The eight local FM licences will be in addition to the two national commercial broadcasting licences that were recently granted to ZiFM owned by AB Communications and Star FM run by Zimpapers.