SBC publishes its 2022 Annual Report |05 October 2023
The Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) has published its annual report covering the period January to December 2022.
The publication reaffirms the SBC's commitment to complying with the SBC Act, which prescribes an annual report.
The report provides an overview of the SBC’s advances, key achievements and challenges as it strives to fulfil its mandate as the public broadcaster.
In his statement, the chairman of the SBC board of directors, Gérard Lafortune, highlights several instances in 2022 whereby SBC faced significant pressures to compromise on its fundamental duty of remaining impartial.
“An independent media is not an option for a healthy democracy; it is a necessity. It is especially so for Seychelles currently, where both the executive and the legislative arms of government are controlled by one political party,” said Mr Lafortune.
The chapter on governance showcases the SBC's efforts to defend press freedom and foster divergent views. The chairman has reaffirmed SBC’s commitment to remaining firm to its mandate and remaining impartial.
The SBC's chief executive, Bérard Duprès, also echoes the chairman’s sentiments around the political pressure and attempts at interference that SBC encountered in 2022.
Notwithstanding these and other challenges, the CEO in his report goes on to outline the significant progress made by SBC across different areas during the year.
“Enabled by an unprecedented increase in the Goods and Services budget allocation for 2021 and 2022, compared to preceding 5 years where this funding has remained stagnant, we were able to pursue a few key strategic projects,” said Mr Duprès.
The report highlights some of those projects, such as the transition of Radyo Sesel to FM frequencies, installation of new modern FM transmitters for both radio stations, digitisation of audio-visual analogue archives and the start of a project to provide an online streaming and video-on-demand TV service.
2022 also marked two important milestones in SBC’s history, namely 30 years of its existence and 25 years of Paradise FM. These were coupled with other improvements including the launch of an Audio on-Demand service, ‘Leko’, and an increase in revenue to pre-Covid levels.
Other achievements during the year, which are summarised in the report, include increase in the SBC’s audience reach and engagement across its radio, television, and digital platforms.
These are detailed in the chapters on ‘Content and our Audience’, which indicate substantial improvements in all areas, from the quality of SBC’s programming, balance and fairness in its reporting, among several other performance indicators.
Looking ahead, SBC will continue to use its Strategic Priorities 2022-2024 as the guide to progress with the transformation of our National Broadcaster, and whereby the priority will remain on improvements in the quality and audience-appeal of the SBC’s outputs.
A copy of the SBC Annual Report 2022 is available on the SBC’s website, www.sbc.sc
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