TV channels Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea's television serves a country in two parts - the mainland Rio Muni and the island of Bioko, where the capital Malabo stands - and its screens follow the life of both.

The field is dominated by the state. The government runs two television services, one based in Malabo - TVGE, the national broadcaster - and one in Bata, the largest city on the mainland, while a further station, Television Asonga, belongs to a son of the president and pairs with his radio outlet - not officially state-run, but owned by people close to the administration. International watchdogs describe the country's media as tightly orchestrated, with criticism of the president and the security forces effectively impossible, and almost all domestic news coverage directed by the government.

A Spanish-speaking screen

Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa, a legacy of the colonial era that ended with independence in 1968, and that heritage shapes its broadcasting. News and programmes go out in Spanish, and cable and satellite providers deliver subscription channels from Spain, so viewers move between Malabo's studios and Madrid's networks. The country has made French and Portuguese co-official languages, but television remains overwhelmingly Spanish-language, and print follows the same pattern, from the state-owned daily Ébano to a handful of private weeklies. Radio completes the picture, with state-run stations in Malabo and Bata and a national network covering both halves of the country.

Entertainment in the lineup

SolTV is the entertainment channel of the Equatorial Guinean lineup, carrying the lighter side of the country's screens. It belongs to Sol Media, a private Equatorial Guinean media company, which presented the channel in 2024 as a new way to follow television on the move, taking Equatorial Guinean programming onto mobile phones - a music-and-entertainment voice in a field long dominated by state broadcasting. It serves a country of fewer than two million people, one of continental Africa's smallest states by population, whose oil boom since the 1990s transformed Malabo and Bata without loosening the media field.

From the national days of Malabo to the life of the mainland towns, television remains the shared screen of Central Africa's only Spanish-speaking country.