TV channels Gambia

The Gambia's television is young: for years the country watched only the public service, and private television arrived to open the field. It is a compact market - the Gambia is the smallest country on the African mainland - but one that has changed fast.

How television came to the Gambia

Regular television reached the Gambia in the mid-1990s, when the public GRTS began broadcasting - one of the later starts in West Africa, in a country long served by radio alone. Radio Gambia had been on the air since 1962, based at Bakau; the television arm was commissioned in December 1995, testing through a transmitter at Abuko, and by August 1996 new transmitters carried its signal nationwide. In its first year the young service brought viewers the European football championship and the Atlanta Olympics - before that, Gambians had relied on Senegalese television from across the border, most of it in French. GRTS still mixes news, education, entertainment and religious programming in English and local languages, and private television followed to widen what Gambians could watch.

The private voice

QTV Gambia is the country's first private television station, carrying entertainment, public affairs and the everyday life of the Smiling Coast - from Serekunda to Basse. Its schedule runs from news in English and local languages to weekly press reviews, youth debates, comedy and sport, and it served as an official media partner of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, bringing its hearings to a national audience.

An opened field

Since the change of government in 2017 the media scene has broadened quickly: the state broadcaster has lost its monopoly, new radio and television networks have been licensed, the crime of defamation was struck down as unconstitutional in 2018, and Radio France Internationale broadcasts on FM in Banjul. Newer private names on the air include Eye Africa TV, Paradise TV and Banjul TV. For a country that came late to television, the change has been swift.

From Independence Day in February to the weekends of its towns, the Gambian screen now carries more than one voice.