Bangladesh, with more than 160 million people and a fast-growing economy, is one of the largest media markets in Asia. Once dominated by the newspapers, media consumption in this country observed a shift in the past two decades with the emergence of private satellite tv channels to become the largest source of news and information to the people.
As of 2020, the country has 45 private television channels, 28 FM radio stations, 1,248 daily newspapers, and hundreds of online news portals, making the market heavily served compared to other similar markets. However, people remained far from reaping the benefits of such a robust media presence due to eroding civic space, political control over media ownership and licensing, and a high level of self-censorship. On the one hand, there is a persistent threat from the state, and on the other hand, a culture of “predatory corporatization” — as termed by one of the most respected editors in Bangladesh — has led to a loss of credibility of news media in general, while the need for the audience to be informed and entertained remained unchanged. As the mainstream continues to compromise, the young audiences start to move online, and social media platforms have become their go-to place to access information.
This new and growing online media space is fragmented, where different interest groups are trying to reach new audiences with innovative approaches. With the lack of quality content, misinformation and clickbait portals begin to fill on the internet. However, there are three major trends in digital: small, local, and issue-based media initiatives providing informative content in innovative formats; individual influencers and bloggers gaining new ground to express dissent; and the mainstream media investing in digital to catch up with the change. They are leveraging two common factors: a large young population and increased accessibility to the internet.
Digitally Right carried out a mapping of 11 innovative and public interest media in Bangladesh seeking to reach diverse audience groups and communities with news and information in a changing media landscape for International Media Support (IMS) Asia Regional Programme in the period 7 November to 15 December 2021. The study covers three main regions and consulted 130 people and media, including thorough desk research and existing information available.
Each of these media initiatives has its unique strengths and weaknesses but managed to thrive to continue to provide information to the community they serve. However, the online media space is chaotic, and media innovation in Bangladesh is still in a very immature stage. Independent journalists’ inability to try out new ideas and risk investments to startup a public interest media is often ascribed to the restrictive licensing system and repressive laws. The uncertainty that the government may not allow them media registration and can block the site anytime — as it happened with a few initiatives — remains one of the biggest constraints for innovation. Therefore, there are more innovations and investments in media that offer information content around important social and economic – and potentially less-sensitive subjects like health, agriculture, migration, and education.
Read the findings of the study here.