Fana Media Corporation (FMC)

Fana Media Corporation S.C. (FMC) is one of Ethiopia’s largest party-affiliated media organisations, formed through the merger of the former Fana Broadcasting Corporate S.C. (FBC) and Walta Media and Communication Corporate S.C. (WMCC). The new merged entity was inaugurated on 5 December 2024 at the Eliana Hotel in Addis Ababa, in a launch event attended by Adam Farah (Vice President of the Prosperity Party, with Deputy Prime Minister rank), Government Communication Service Minister Legese Tulu (PhD), Tourism Minister Selamwit Kassa, and the Social Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister Deacon Daniel Kibret. FMC is led by CEO Admasu Damtew (former Fana Broadcasting manager) with Deacon Daniel Kibret serving as Chairman of the Management Board.

FMC’s predecessor Fana Broadcasting Corporate originated from Radio Fana, established in 1990 as Ethiopia’s first private FM radio station, and was formally constituted as FBC in 1994. The other predecessor, Walta, was founded in 1994 as the Walta Information and Public Relations Center. Both predecessors were jointly owned by the four coalition parties of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) until December 2019, when the EPRDF dissolved and ownership consolidated under the unitary Prosperity Party under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The 2024 merger consolidated these two longstanding party-owned media institutions into a single corporate structure.

Today FMC operates two television channels (Fana Television and Fana Plus TV), the National Radio service, twelve networked FM stations across Ethiopia, and digital platforms in seven Ethiopian languages (Amharic, Afan Oromo, Afarigna, Somaligna, Tigrigna, Wolaitigna, Sidamigna) plus English and Arabic. According to a TV BRICS partnership announcement in July 2024, FMC’s predecessor information resources reached approximately 20 million people daily — making FMC one of the largest non-state-owned media reaches in the country.

Media assets

Television: Fana Television, Fana Plus TV

Radio: National Radio + 12 networked FM stations — Addis Ababa 98.1, Multilingual 105.3, Jimma 98.1, Gondar 98.1, Dessie 96.0, Haramaya 94.8, Shashemene 103.4, Wolaita Sodo 99.9, Nekemte 96.1, Debre Berhan 94.0, Asella 90.0, Mizan Aman 92.5

Digital: fanamc.com,

2026 dataset addition: FMC has been added to the State Media Monitor dataset in the 2026 update cycle as the merged successor to two predecessor entities. Walta Media and Communication Corporate (WMCC) was previously listed in the 2022–2025 dataset as State Controlled (SC); Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) was not previously listed. The CaPr classification reflects FMC’s institutional structure: a privately registered share company (S.C.) that is not directly owned by any Ethiopian state institution, but whose effective ownership and editorial direction trace to the ruling Prosperity Party. This parallels the methodological approach applied to Walta in this same update cycle prior to the merger. The board chairmanship of Deacon Daniel Kibret, Social Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister and a senior Prosperity Party figure, confirms the direct party-political governance of the merged entity.

Ownership and governance

FMC is legally registered as a share company (S.C.) under Ethiopian commercial law. Effective ownership and political control flow from the ruling Prosperity Party, inherited from the EPRDF coalition that previously held both predecessor entities. The current corporate structure was formalised at the December 2024 inaugural event, where the Prosperity Party’s senior leadership, Vice President Adam Farah, Government Communication Service Minister Legese Tulu, and Daniel Kibret, publicly endorsed the merger and its political mission.

The Management Board is chaired by Deacon Daniel Kibret, who stated at the inaugural event that the corporation will focus on “safeguarding national interests, advancing a grand narrative, and supporting nationwide development initiatives”, language that articulates FMC’s institutional positioning as a political-communications instrument rather than an independent journalistic enterprise. Daniel Kibret combines his FMC chairmanship with his ongoing role as Social Affairs Advisor to PM Abiy Ahmed, formalising the linkage between the prime minister’s office and FMC’s governance.

The Chief Executive Officer is Admasu Damtew (also rendered Admasu Damto Damo), who served as CEO of Fana Broadcasting Corporate in the lead-up to the merger and continued in the role at the merged entity. Admasu has explicitly described FMC at international forums as representing “party-affiliated media organizations”, a characterisation provided by him personally at an April 2025 international media seminar in China organised by the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. This self-description by the chief executive corroborates the CaPr typology classification.

Source of funding and budget

FMC’s funding model combines commercial advertising (with FMC’s reach of approximately 20 million daily users providing a substantial advertising base), content syndication, government and party-aligned communications contracts, and direct support channelled through the Prosperity Party’s budgetary ecosystem. There are no publicly available audit reports and no disclosure of funding sources or annual budgets. The pre-merger Walta entity reportedly generated approximately ETB 434 million (US $7.6 million) in 2023 income; the pre-merger FBC entity had a workforce of more than 1,000 staff and a substantially larger commercial footprint than Walta. Combined post-merger operating budget figures for 2025 have not been publicly disclosed.

International partnerships under both predecessor entities and the merged FMC have substantially expanded since 2022. Fana Broadcasting signed a content-exchange agreement with Russia’s Sputnik in March 2023, with Sputnik director Vasily Pushkov stating that Ethiopian media would become “a major priority” for the Russian state agency. In July 2024, FBC joined the TV BRICS partner network, positioning itself within the BRICS+ multipolar information architecture. In March 2026, FMC announced a partnership to screen Chinese television programmes on its platforms. These geopolitical alignments, Russia, China, BRICS+, track with Ethiopia’s broader foreign-policy posture as a BRICS partner country since 2024.

Editorial independence

FMC exhibits no meaningful editorial independence. Coverage on Fana Television, Fana Plus TV, the FM network, and the fanamc.com digital portal overwhelmingly highlights government achievements, speeches by senior officials, ruling-party messaging, and federal-government framing on contested issues. Critical coverage of the federal government, opposition political voices, and investigative reporting are absent from FMC’s regular output. The board chair’s December 2024 statement that FMC will pursue “a grand narrative” frames the institution’s editorial mission in explicitly political-communications terms.

The most significant documented cases of partisan editorial behaviour by the predecessor entities, which the merged FMC has neither repudiated nor reformed, include:

• 2016 Amhara protests: protesters chanted “Shame on ETV & FBC” and targeted FBC alongside the federal state broadcaster, framing FBC’s coverage of regional dissent as state-aligned propaganda.
• June–August 2020 Hachalu Hundessa fallout: Fana TV coverage following the assassination of the popular Oromo singer was criticised by media-studies scholars for amplifying eyewitness accounts framing Oromo perpetrators as targeting non-Oromo homes, narratives critics described as xenophobic and as deepening inter-ethnic animosity.
• Tigray war (2020–2022): Fana TV’s coverage of federal military operations was singled out by pro-Tigray analyses as legitimising violence against Tigrayan civilians, while FBC maintained its coverage represented factual reporting on national security threats.
• Amhara conflict (2023–present): FMC has echoed federal government framing attributing instability to “dark forces” and labelling Fano combatants as “Tsinfegna” extremists, without including their viewpoints. A 7 September 2023 segment was specifically cited by media researchers for using emotive framing to reinforce government claims of insurgent illegitimacy.

There is no internal ombudsman, no published editorial code, and no independent oversight mechanism at FMC. The Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA), the federal media regulator established under the 2021 Media Proclamation, has not sanctioned FMC or its predecessor entities despite documented partisan coverage during ethnic conflicts, in marked contrast to its 2025 actions against Deutsche Welle Ethiopian correspondents and other independent media.

Through 2025–2026, FMC’s coverage has been dominated by federal-government themes consistent with the institutional positioning articulated by Daniel Kibret and Admasu Damtew at the December 2024 inaugural event: economic development achievements (notably the September 2025 inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Ethiopia’s BRICS partner-country activities), ruling-party messaging, and run-up coverage to the June 1, 2026 general elections.

AI and digital policy

FMC operates a substantial digital portfolio led by fanamc.com (with Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, English, Arabic and Afar editions), an Amharic Facebook page with 4.5 million followers, and active presences on YouTube, X/Twitter, Telegram, TikTok, WhatsApp Channels, and Bluesky. Fana Television was Ethiopia’s first satellite channel to broadcast in Full HD. The FBC predecessor signed an agreement with South African DStv in March 2018 expanding pan-African distribution, and Websprix launched the first IPTV service in Ethiopia carrying Fana TV in early 2018. No formal AI policy, content-provenance commitment (e.g. C2PA), or disclosure framework for AI-generated content has been published. There is no public statement on synthetic-media disclosure, automated translation between FMC’s nine operating languages, or AI use in editorial workflows. The Ethiopian Media Authority has not issued sector-wide AI guidance as of April 2026.

April 2026