TV channels Rwanda

Rwanda's television is a young field in a country where radio was long king: the national channel arrived only in the 1990s, and today a growing ring of private stations shares the airwaves with it.

How television came to Rwanda

Rwanda was one of the last countries in Africa to get television. After years of studies with French help, the government launched Télévision Rwandaise in December 1992, with French-installed transmitters in Kigali, Butare and Ruhengeri; its first broadcast, on 31 December, opened with a speech by President Juvénal Habyarimana, and at first it ran only at weekends, five hours a day. Suspended when the genocide began in April 1994, the station resumed that October with American assistance and reached a full-week schedule by 1996. As the economy grew and digital platforms spread, both public and private investment flowed increasingly into television - though radio, led by Radio Rwanda on the air since 1961, remains the most trusted medium.

The national and the general channels

Rwanda TV is the national television service, tied to the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency - the screen for national events, public announcements and coverage in Kinyarwanda and the country's working languages. Its sister service KC2 - Kigali Channel 2 - is the agency's second channel, with entertainment at the heart of its schedule, while the general private channels TV1, TV10 and Isibo TV stand beside them. TV10 made history on 1 March 2013 as the country's first private television station, ending twenty years of public monopoly; owned by the Tele 10 group, whose Radio 10 was Rwanda's first commercial radio station, it was digital from birth, ahead of the analogue switch-off. TV1 followed in 2014.

Music and entertainment

Isango TV carries the music of the country - gospel, Afrobeat and the Rwandan sound - and entertainment programming rounds out the field. Rwanda switched off its analogue signals in June 2014, becoming the second country in sub-Saharan Africa to complete the digital transition; around a dozen stations now operate, most of them private.

From the commemorations of April to the Umuganda community days, Rwanda's channels serve a country that watches itself ever more closely on screen.