Mozambique’s STV celebrates 16 years looking forward to going digital

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Mozambique’s STV celebrates 16 years looking forward to going digital

1:42 CAT | 26 Oct 2018

Photo: O País / @opaisonline

SOICO Television (STV), the largest media group in Mozambique, celebrated its 16th birthday on Thursday. To commemorate the anniversary, journalists, editors, directors and other members of the staff gathered in the company’s headquarters in Maputo for a brief meeting to toast the passage of the historic date.

Daniel David, the chairman the SOICO group which owns the STV channel, led the celebrations, describing the 16 years of television, highlighting its growth and the challenges ahead.

“I am still not satisfied. We have built a success, with a lot of work and with our ups and downs, but we are very proud. But our dream is to rise to still higher levels, to new horizons and new challenges,” he said, signalling the approach of digitisation as the biggest challenge of all.

“The challenge of digital is there, and we have to be the differentiators, the innovators, and the leaders. And this is only possible if we have capable, motivated and well-qualified human resources,” David said.

“Let’s do this,” he said, highlighting what will henceforth be the Board of Directors’ main preoccupation. “We will develop an entire digital migration and organisational transformation strategy for the group, in pursuit of excellence, and sustainable. And, with team work, we will reach our goal,” he enthused.

16-year overview

Invited by the group chairman to take a 16-year overview, Chief Operating Officer Jeremias Langa mentioned some of the highlights of the journey, starting with how the adverse economic situation had marked the last three years.

“Making television has been a huge challenge because our economic reality is suis generis. In the last three years, we have seen major economic, social and political challenges. As you know, our economic growth has fallen from 7% to 3%. In terms of numbers it may not be a big deal, but in real terms it’s a lot for an economy. This has repercussions on the economy of companies and media activity and we also feel the impact very much,” Langa noted.

But he also remarked on the resilience of the SOICO group.

“Despite the situation we face, we have managed to stand on our two feet. We created STV Play (launched last year), which has been a huge success, and we have been making remarkable investments in the operational and technical area, enabling us to make live transmission to any part of the country, which is a huge step I very much wish to emphasise,” he said.

He also mentioned the emphasis on employing nationally and airing local content – which today constitutes 75% of broadcasting.

But Langa stressed that there were still challenges to face.

“We have to face many challenges,” he said. “We have the challenge of improving our quality of production, of producing more and more content in external contexts, of more training of our human resources, and of improving working conditions,” said Langa, offering the current digital migration challenge as an investment for the future.

“We have to continue to be leaders in a sustainable way,” he said, highlighting finally the key ingredients for achieving this intention: Rigour, Responsibility and Work.

By William Mapote

Hoje, há 16 anos, o nosso país mudava. A 25/10 de 2002 o #GrupoSOICO introduziu um diferencial qualitativo na comunicação social em Moçambique, lançando a @soicotelevisao. Estamos de parabéns pelo aniversário mas sobretudo pelo percurso de sucesso traçado ao longo destes anos! pic.twitter.com/NhPXromSjp

— Daniel David (@Danielsoico) October 25, 2018

A STV Celebra 16 anos de existência esta quinta-feira#stv #16anos #televisao #opais #opaisonline #oapis #gruposoico pic.twitter.com/oiAK9ktieF

— O País Online (@opaisonline) October 25, 2018