Radio Radio is the most popular medium of information in Rwanda, and is generally regarded as more trustworthy than other forms such as social media. Radio broadcasting in
Rwanda is primarily conducted through a subsidiary of the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA),
Radio Rwanda. The station transmits on
FM 100.7 and offers programming in
Kinyarwanda,
English,
French and
Kiswahili. Radio Rwanda complements other national and private media outlets, which mainly broadcast in English and Kinyarwanda, the two most widely used languages in Rwanda and the country's working and national languages, respectively. In recent years, as Rwanda's economy has expanded and access to digital platforms has improved, radio has experienced a relative decline in audience share, while government and private investment have increasingly focused on the television and digital media sectors.
Newspapers Rwanda no longer uses printed newspapers, with its last hard-copy paper being from
The New Times in 2020, which was also the oldest newspaper established and used in Rwanda, which also owns a newspaper joint in
Kinyarwanda, called
Izuba Rirashe. Since then, newspapers have shifted digital, with digital media in general being the third most consumed source of information, although only 34% of Rwandans owning a smartphone (84% owning a phone).
The New Times has been criticized for being "too servile" to the
ruling party of Rwanda, and being "excessively optimistic". As such, competitors in the English-language newspaper industry have sprung up, with the formation of another large-scale English newspaper
News of Rwanda in 2011. Other minor newspapers have also been created to counter the pro-establishment role of the newspaper, such as
The Rwandan,
Rwanda Eye and
Business Daily. Several newspaper publishers also provide Kinyarwanda-language newspapers, including both
News of Rwanda and
The Rwandan. In June 2018, News of Rwanda closed.
News websites Television The Rwandan television industry is made up of 12 TV stations. 84% of TV stations are owned by private companies (10 out of 12), while the remaining 8% each are owned by public and religious organisations respectively. The state-owned
Rwandan Broadcasting Agency runs the TV station
Rwanda Television (RTV). The first private television station,
TV10, made its first broadcast on 1 March 2013. Its launch led to a surge in private channels, primarily dependent on foreign content.
Book publishers A major share of the market is controlled by nine indigenous publishers, among which four have opened bookshops in the country. Before the
genocide against the Tutsi, there were no publishing houses in Rwanda. The situation improved after the incident, with the first indigenous publisher established in the country,
Bakame Editions. Since the turn of the century, major publishers from all across the world such as
Oxford University Press and
Macmillan Publishers have begun making inroads into the local publishing industry. However, the establishment of publishing houses locally and from abroad has not instituted a healthy reading culture in Rwanda, and local publishers have decried the fact that the younger generation does not often participate in this pastime. Despite the boom in the local publishing industry, a similar spell of growth has yet to be seen in the commercial trading of books. Bookstores remain a rare sight in Rwanda, and the first library in the country was established in 2012 in Kigali. ==Legal regulation of media==