Sahara Media Group

Sahara Media Group (SMG) is one of Tanzania’s largest privately controlled media groups, based in Mwanza on the southern shore of Lake Victoria. The company operates across television, radio, and digital platforms, with Star TV, Radio Free Africa (RFA), and Kiss FM among its most prominent brands. SMG traces its origins to Sahara Communication and Publishing Company Limited, incorporated in 1992; some reporting describes the company’s establishment by Anthony Diallo in 1994, with the Sahara Media Group name formalised in 2010. SMG was founded by Dr Anthony Mwandu Diallo, a businessman, engineer, and politician who served as Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Member of Parliament for the Ilemela constituency in Mwanza from 1995 to October 2010, served as a cabinet minister between 2000 and 2008, and is a former Mwanza Regional CCM Party Chairman. SMG’s editorial output has historically been closely aligned with the ruling party.

On 2 March 2026, the Commercial Division of Tanzania’s High Court issued a compulsory winding-up order against Sahara Media Group Limited on the basis of irreversible insolvency, with debts far exceeding the company’s assets and no viable prospect of recovery. The petition was filed by the company itself, a voluntary application for compulsory winding-up, and was granted by Judge Dr Mwajuma Kadilu. As of the winding-up order, the future operation, sale, transfer, or restructuring of Star TV, Radio Free Africa, and Kiss FM was placed under the liquidation process.

Media assets

Television: Star TV

Radio: Radio Free Africa (RFA), Kiss FM

Ownership and governance

SMG is a privately controlled media group founded by Anthony Diallo. Its main outlets operate through Sahara-linked licensee entities, including Star TV, Radio Free Africa Limited, and Kiss FM (T) Limited; exact current shareholding is best verified through a current BRELA extract or current TCRA licence file. The company does not publish board-of-directors information or corporate-governance disclosures, and prior to the winding-up filings did not maintain a consistent public financial-disclosure practice.

Dr Diallo’s political career places him within Tanzania’s ruling-party establishment. He served as CCM Member of Parliament for the Ilemela constituency in Mwanza from 1995 until October 2010, when he lost his seat to a Chama cha Maendeleo na Demokrasia (Chadema) candidate. Within the cabinet between 2000 and 2008 he served as Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Deputy Minister for Water and Livestock, and Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism. He also served as Mwanza Regional CCM Party Chairman, a role from which he had departed by April 2025 according to subsequent Mwananchi reporting. Before founding SMG, Diallo was the founding partner of dm Investment Co. Ltd., an engineering manufacturing firm based at the Nyakato factory in Mwanza which produced the SAHARA brand of electrical appliances, agricultural machinery, single-stroke diesel engines, and industrial machinery until its wind-up in 1994.

The March 2026 winding-up petition was supported by an affidavit from Steven Dogani Diallo, identified as the company’s Principal Officer, accompanied by audited financial statements, board resolutions, and tax demand notices from the Tanzania Revenue Authority’s Mwanza office.

Source of funding and budget

SMG operated primarily on a commercial advertising and sponsored-content model; court filings released during the winding-up process provide the clearest public financial data on the company’s distress. For the year ended 31 December 2023, SMG recorded a loss of TZS 3,934,269,231 (approximately US$1.5 million). Losses had continued across five consecutive years. By the time the petition was filed, approximately 80% of the company’s revenue was being consumed by tax liabilities alone, leaving nothing for creditors, employees, or operations. Outstanding tax obligations totalling TZS 97,746,606 had accumulated through a series of demand notices issued between April and June 2025. The Chanzo’s reporting on the case described Tanzania’s media as “a financially broken industry” in which the traditional advertising model had “nearly collapsed” over the previous eight years — a sector-wide dynamic affecting many Tanzanian commercial media houses.

Editorial independence

Sahara Media Group’s editorial output has historically been closely aligned with the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party. A 2010 TEMCO/Synovate election-monitoring study identified Star TV and Radio Free Africa with Anthony Diallo, then a serving CCM Member of Parliament, and warned that the presence of CCM cadres in private-media ownership weakened media pluralism and helped explain negative opposition coverage. The 2015 European Union Election Observation Mission to Tanzania report was more outlet-specific, finding that Star TV, Radio Free Africa, and Channel Ten largely focused on CCM while some other private media were more balanced. Documented monitoring from 2010 and 2015 therefore shows strong CCM alignment in Sahara-linked outlets; no public 2025 SMG-specific monitoring report was identified in this review. SMG has no internal statute protecting editorial independence, and no external oversight mechanism exists to monitor or validate the impartiality of its reporting.

AI and digital policy

Sahara Media Group’s broadcast infrastructure relies on DVB-T2 digital television and FM transmission, with the Mwanza headend operating a Selenio media convergence platform and Harris Broadcast Maxiva digital television transmitters. SMG has not adopted any public-facing policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure, or content provenance frameworks such as C2PA. At the national-policy level, the Cybercrimes Act, the Electronic and Postal Communications Act, and the Online Content Regulations under the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) continue to shape the regulatory environment for digital content. The financial and operational disruption associated with the March 2026 winding-up order will materially affect SMG’s digital development trajectory.

May 2026