The Association of Public Television and Radio Broadcasters (SABA) for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is setting up a television station, to be called "SABA TV", to broadcast content produced in the member countries.

SABA's Content Committee met today in Maputo, at one of its quarterly meetings, to coordinate and discuss the nature of the content that will be broadcast on the channel, as well as the challenges of creating the channel.

"The main point we want to discuss has to do with the production of content for the region. In principle, SABA TV will work with the content produced on the associated channels, but we also have our own productions," said the SABA representative.

Marta Odalah, said that access to funding is one of the main challenges for the "project to get off the ground".

"We're not getting the channel on air because it requires a lot of infrastructure. That's the big 'Achilles heel'. The Association was created on the recommendation of members of the governments to function as an independent television channel. The governments have not yet taken over this channel as their own. And one of the discussions will be how to manage without public funding," he said.

Odalah also said that at the moment SABA TV needs to look for partnerships, and although it already has some, it needs to negotiate contracts and ways of working, to compensate.

The channel should already be on air because in terms of content "we already have enough to cover 365 days. (RM/TVM).