THE awarding of licences to six national free-to-air commercial television broadcasting stations last week was received with mixed feelings by Zimbabweans. Many hailed the momentous occasion as unparalled developed since 1890, some simply as an incremental gain and a significant group remained indifferent to the development. Paidamoyo Muzulu The Broadcasting Services Act created a three-tier broadcasting services — public broadcasting, commercial private broadcasting and community broadcasting. Despite the existence of the three-tier broadcasting service models, Zimbabwe, since the 1960s when it started broadcasting, entrenched State/public broadcasting model through the statutes. The State broadcasting monopoly just like telephone services monopoly was cast in law, State monopoly over telecommunications and broadcasting was established through the Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) Act and Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation (RBC) Act. The State knew best and was the only vehicle to deliver what the people wanted without pursuing commercial/profit interest. The State monopoly was broken in six short years between 1994 and 2000. Chief Justice Antony Gubbay in two seminal judgments — Econet constitutional challenge against PTC Act as ultra vires the right to freedom of information and Capital Radio challenge of the Broadcasting Act that it infringed the right to freedom of information — broke the State’s monopoly over the airwaves. Despite the two landmark decisions by the Constitutional Court, the monopoly was not immediately broken. Econet was only licensed through a Supreme Court order in 1998, four years after it had won its case against State-sanctioned monopoly as unconstitutional. On the other hand, Capital Radio never got the chance to officially broadcast as there was no enabling Act that allowed licensing of private players. The law — Broadcasting Services Act — was only enacted in 2002, but the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe board was only put in place years later and took its time to invite applications for licences. It is interesting that the two constitutional challenges were launched by private entities in pursuit of profits. The companies wanted to make money for their investors or shareholders, not offering public services to citizens. This was merely commodification of a public good — the broadcasting spectrum. I know many would ask why I included the Econet case about broadcasting. This was deliberate since telecommunications since the 1990s have become an integral part of broadcasting through new information communication technologies (ICT). Imagine the use of mobile smartphones to livestream events using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. In other words, the broadcasting industry has been revolutionarising without regulations and the State was playing catch-up. The licensing of private players was long over due considering Zimbabwe was the second country in sub-Saharan Africa to have a national television station after Nigeria. Yes, Zimbabwe had television