Online: The High Street Journal, October 15, 2025
CUTS Int’l Boss Appiah Kusi Adomako urges balanced support for GBC, proposing transparent, accountable funding to strengthen its public service role without distorting competition, stressing reforms to enhance efficiency, fairness, and inclusiveness in Ghana’s media landscape.
West African Regional Director of the CUTS International, Appiah Kusi Adomako (Esq), is proposing innovative ways the state can support the public broadcaster, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), to achieve its core mandate without distorting the highly competitive Ghana’s media landscape.
The proposal from the competition economists follows the recent public outrage over the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation’s (GBC) inability to secure broadcasting rights for Ghana’s World Cup qualifying matches due to funding challenges.
The state broadcaster’s failure has reignited the long-standing national debate on how to fund the state broadcaster sustainably without suffocating private media competition.
For the West African Regional Director of CUTS International, the problem runs deeper than just missed football matches. In his latest commentary copied to The High Street Journal, he argues that GBC’s financial struggles reflect a bigger challenge in Ghana’s media ecosystem. He says the issues revolve around how to preserve the public broadcaster’s mandate while ensuring fair play in an increasingly commercialized media market.
“Public broadcasters are not like private channels like UTV, Channel One, GhOne or Joy News. Their mission goes beyond profit or ratings. They are meant to inform, educate, and reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of the nation,” he remarked.
According to him, while private media houses chase ratings and advertisers, the state broadcaster must exist to give a voice to underrepresented communities and promote national cohesion.
However, he admits that fulfilling this mandate requires a stable funding model, which does not give the public broadcaster an unfair advantage.
Why Just Paying the TV License is Not the Solution
Lawyer Appiah Adomako vehemently opposes the idea of scrapping GBC or leaving it to survive purely on commercial terms. This, he says, could be disastrous.
“Some argue that since private broadcasters are thriving, there is no need for a public broadcaster. This is a toxic idea. Even the most market-oriented democracies maintain public broadcasting precisely because markets alone cannot guarantee pluralism or access to reliable information for all citizens,” he argued.
He says the question that needs to be answered is how to fund the broadcaster sustainably to keep to its core mandate of national cohesion, information, and education, but without distorting the market with undue advantage.
He says the current regime of the TV licence is not the solution. The consumer protection advocate argues that the model, in its old form, is unsustainable. Apart from being difficult to enforce, it risks giving GBC an unfair advantage if the corporation continues to sell advertising while also collecting licence fees.
To him, GBC cannot be supported with a license while it is still in the open market competing with private and commercial media organizations for advertising revenue.
“If GBC is permitted to collect license fees while continuing to sell advertising, it would enjoy a structural advantage over private competitors. With additional revenue guaranteed, GBC could undercut competitors in advertising rates or outbid them for broadcasting rights,” he notes.
Apart from its anti-competition nature, he further observes that the TV license has proven difficult to collect efficiently in Ghana. Compliance remains low, and the administrative cost of collection often outweighs the revenue raised.
The Right Balance
To ensure fairness, Lawyer Adomako proposes a more transparent and accountable funding mechanism. The first funding model, he says, could involve direct government allocations tied to specific public service obligations.
This will include services such as educational programming, national events, or multilingual broadcasting, broadcasting rights for national team matches, among others.
The second option, he says, could be a mixed funding model where GBC receives limited public funds for non-commercial programming while its commercial operations remain self-sustaining and clearly separated. To him, public funds should go into what serves the public interest, not into competing for advertising slots. He adds that ensuring adherence to these conditions could be given to the National Media Commission.
Beyond Funding: The Need for Reform
The CUTS International boss further insists that money alone will not solve GBC’s woes. The corporation, he says, needs deep structural reforms to improve efficiency, creativity, and digital relevance.
He says reviving GBC to enhance its role in Ghana’s media landscape shouldn’t mean returning to the monopoly days. He insists it should mean building a strong, modern public broadcaster that complements, not competes with, the private sector.
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