Radiotelevisão Caboverdiana (RTC)

Radiotelevisão Caboverdiana (RTC) is Cape Verde’s national public-service broadcaster, operating the television channel Televisão de Cabo Verde (TCV) and the national radio station Rádio de Cabo Verde (RCV). It was created in 1997 through the merger of two former state-run entities, Rádio Nacional de Cabo Verde (RNC) and Televisão Nacional de Cabo Verde (TNCV), following a proposal by the then-Minister of Social Communication, José António dos Reis; several histories date the founding to May 1997, while some public summaries give 1 August 1997 as the formal date. TCV and RCV are among the country’s leading broadcast outlets, and the state-owned media remain major employers in the Cape Verdean media sector. RTC is headquartered in the capital, Praia.

Media assets

Television: TCV

Radio: RCV

Ownership and governance

RTC is a wholly state-owned enterprise. Decree-Law No. 49/2019 of 12 November 2019 introduced new statutes that created an Independent Council (Conselho Independente), a body responsible for selecting the members of RTC’s Board of Administration and for supervising compliance with public-service obligations, replacing the previous model of direct government appointment. The first Independent Council was constituted in April 2020. In March 2024, a new Board of Administration was installed, with the economist Karine Miranda as President and Humberto Santos and Victor Varela as members, following the January 2024 resignation of the previous president.

The reform improved the formal appointment structure, but it has not fully insulated RTC from political pressure. According to the State Media Monitor review, key decisions within RTC continue to align closely with the interests of the governing authorities, and academic research drawing on interviews with Cape Verdean journalists has likewise found that the Independent Council did not end perceived political interference. There is no independent mechanism that has proved sufficient to safeguard RTC’s editorial autonomy in practice.

Source of funding and budget

RTC’s principal revenue source is the audiovisual contribution collected on its behalf through ELECTRA, the national energy utility, and AEB, supplemented by a compensatory indemnity transferred by the Treasury and by commercial revenue from advertising and sponsorship; in its 2018 accounts, RTC reported that the audiovisual contribution accounted for about 66% of its total revenue. The state’s compensatory indemnity was increased from 48 million escudos, its level since 1997, to 86 million escudos from 2024, under a new public-service concession contract. According to the State Media Monitor review, audiovisual-contribution revenue stood at around CVE 439 million in 2020 and CVE 445 million in 2021 (official figures), with subsequent years estimated at roughly CVE 450–456 million. RTC has drawn criticism over the efficiency of its spending and a lack of financial transparency. The public broadcaster, though better resourced than the private sector, remains dependent on state funding.

Editorial independence

RTC’s editorial mission is formally governed by separate editorial statutes for TCV and RCV, which emphasise professionalism, impartiality and journalistic integrity. In practice, however, editorial independence remains compromised, and a high-profile 2025 dispute illustrated the tension directly. After the director of TCV, Bernardina Ferreira, resisted what she described as board interference in the channel’s editorial content, the media regulator, the Autoridade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social (ARC), confirmed in deliberations in August and September 2025 that RTC’s Board of Administration had interfered in TCV’s editorial autonomy, and fined the broadcaster 350,000 escudos. When the board subsequently suspended Ferreira for 45 days at the end of October 2025, the journalists’ union AJOC condemned the move as an act of reprisal and “an attack on press freedom,” the TCV and RCV newsroom councils demanded its annulment, and the International Federation of Journalists called for her reinstatement; RTC’s management maintained that the disciplinary process was an internal management matter unrelated to journalistic work or editorial freedom. The episode was raised in the National Assembly.

These conditions are precisely what places RTC in the Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu) category rather than among fully state-controlled outlets: it is a genuine public-service broadcaster, with formal editorial statutes and, since 2019, an arms-length appointment mechanism, yet one whose independence is hollowed out in practice by persistent political capture.

AI and digital policy

No RTC-specific published policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure, or content-provenance standards such as C2PA was identified. RTC maintains online platforms alongside its television and radio services, but no sector-specific framework governing AI-generated or synthetic news content in Cape Verde’s state media was identified.

May 2026