2022 Year in Review

In 2015, Chinese leader Xi Jinping introduced the “10,000 Villages Project”, an
ambitious vision to bring digital television to impoverished regions of Africa to
tackle the burgeoning digital divide between urban and rural regions of Africa by
upgrading telecommunications infrastructure and providing discounted or free
TV to low-income communities by StarTimes. Previously, television access was a
reserved privilege of the wealthy, and even so, was unreliably connected by
satellite with analogue reception.
With China’s well-established reputation on the continent, the 10,000 Villages
Project further cast a philanthropic light on the People’s Republic’s activities in
Africa. The project provided more than just positive reception; it crucially gave
China an inroad in Africa’s communication infrastructure and media landscape.
STARTIMES: FROM BEIJING TO 30 AFRICAN COUNTRIES
Under Jiang Zemin, China’s leader from 1989 to 2002, the “Go Out Policy”
encouraged Chinese entrepreneurs to invest in Africa and forge stronger ties
with nations on the continent. This saw Pang Xinxing take his then fledgling
telecommunications company StarTimes away from the saturated Chinese
market and into Africa in 2002. He saw a demand for low-cost TV, and today,
StarTimes still provides one of the world’s most affordable digital TV packages
for as little as US$4.00 per month.
StarTimes penetration of the African market coincided with the United Nations’
2006 push for Africa to switch from snow analogue signals to digital TV by 2015,
a goal difficult to achieve for most African nations, thus pivotally providing
StarTimes an opportunity to lend its expertise and capability to expand its
operations.
The Beijing-headquartered company currently carries hundreds of African
stations, as well as providing Chinese and international channels. The cheapest
package offered bundles together Chinese and African channels, including CGTN,
China’s state-owned English news broadcaster established as part of Xi Jinping’s
soft power push to “tell the China story well”.
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