Televisão de Moçambique (TVM)

Televisão de Moçambique (TVM) is the national public television broadcaster of Mozambique, headquartered in Maputo with delegations across the country’s provinces. TVM was launched on 3 February 1981 as Televisão Experimental de Moçambique with limited Sunday-only programming, and gradually expanded to full-week broadcasting before adopting its current name in the early 1990s. By 2001, the broadcaster’s signal was distributed nationally via satellite, and digital terrestrial transmission has been progressively rolled out under a national TV digitalisation programme. TVM operates two principal channels, TVM (the generalist domestic service in Portuguese) and TVM Internacional (the international service for the Mozambican diaspora).

In February 2026, on the occasion of TVM’s 45th anniversary, the broadcaster launched a new Portal de Comunicação, a digital platform offering exclusive content alongside the modernisation of public television broadcasting services. The launch was presented by the new Council Chair Victor Nhatitima as part of TVM’s commitment to “guarantee universal access to TVM, with efficiency and equity” — a stated reform agenda whose substantive impact remains to be assessed against the broadcaster’s well-documented pattern of editorial alignment with the government of the day.

Media assets

Television: TVM

Ownership and governance

TVM was originally established as an Empresa Pública (public enterprise) under Decree 19/1994. The 1994 statute was later revoked by subsequent legislation, and TVM has been operating under updated public-enterprise legal frameworks; a consolidated current statute is not consistently available in publicly accessible form, but its institutional position as a state-owned public enterprise has been continuous. Governance is vested in a Council of Administration chaired by a Presidente do Conselho de Administração (PCA) who exercises significant decision-making authority over strategic and editorial direction. Senior leadership of TVM is appointed through the executive branch, reinforcing the broadcaster’s institutional alignment with the government of the day.

The current PCA is Victor Filipe Sinai Nhatitima, appointed by the Council of Ministers on 2 December 2025 during its 41st ordinary session. Nhatitima, born 1 October 1974 and a son of former Attorney-General Sinai Nhatitima, is a communications and public-relations specialist, having studied communication at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (Brazil, 1996–2001) and subsequently at Universidade Politécnica. Prior to his TVM appointment, Nhatitima held senior communications roles at the Foundation for Community Development (FDC), Vale Moçambique, and the Millennium Challenge Account Mozambique. He succeeded Élio (Hélio) Manuel Jonasse, a longtime TVM journalist and Telejornal presenter who had held the post since December 2021. Jonasse had been the third PCA in less than four years, succeeding Faruco Sadique, a leadership turnover pattern that has tracked the broader political volatility around the 2024 election cycle.

The supervisory framework was substantially restructured in January 2025 under President Daniel Chapo’s first Presidential Decree (No. 1/2025 of 16 January 2025), which abolished the previous Ministry of Transport and Communications and created a new Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformation (MCTD). The MCTD is currently headed by Cabinet Minister Américo Muchanga, formerly chairperson of the National Communications Institute (INCM) and most recently chairperson of Mozambique Airlines (LAM). The status of GABINFO (Gabinete de Informação), the Government Information Office that previously concentrated regulatory and supervisory powers over public media under the Prime Minister’s Office, has not been clearly clarified in publicly available decrees following the MCTD’s creation; oversight functions have effectively shifted toward the new ministry.

Source of funding and budget

TVM’s financial model is heavily dependent on state support. According to the existing State Media Monitor profile and IGEPE-related disclosures, in 2022 TVM reported a total budget of approximately MZN 677 million (US$ 10.5 million), with 66% funded by direct government allocation and the remaining 34% from advertising sales, sponsored programming, production services, and other commercial activities. Detailed financial disclosures for the 2023, 2024, or 2025 fiscal years have not been published, and the macro-fiscal context for the broadcaster has tightened significantly. The post-election political crisis of October 2024–January 2025 caused substantial economic damage, including disruption to commercial activity, sharp depreciation of the Metical, and downward revisions of growth forecasts. The broader 2025–2029 government cycle under President Chapo has prioritised state reform, including the abolition of multiple ministries and the reduction of public-sector positions ,pressures that flow downstream to public-sector entities including TVM, although specific changes to TVM’s funding allocation under the FY 2025 or FY 2026 budgets have not been publicly disclosed.

Editorial independence

TVM does not exhibit meaningful editorial independence. Decree 19/1994 formally stipulates that public media should operate “free from any interference or influence that might compromise their autonomy,” but the broadcaster is widely perceived as functioning as an extension of the government’s communication apparatus, consistently favouring ruling-party narratives and excluding dissenting or oppositional viewpoints. According to Mozambican journalists and media analysts consulted for the 2025 SMM update cycle, editorial staff routinely engage in self-censorship, anticipating backlash or disciplinary action from management, while senior editors closely vet content to ensure alignment with government messaging. TVM does maintain an editorial statute, but the document is general in scope and lacks enforceable protections for editorial independence.

The 2024–2026 period was defined by Mozambique’s 9 October 2024 general election and the subsequent post-election crisis. The National Electoral Commission (CNE) initially announced FRELIMO candidate Daniel Chapo as the winner with 70.67% of the vote, with the Constitutional Council subsequently confirming his victory at 65.17% in late December 2024. The opposition PODEMOS party, backed by independent presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, disputed the result, publishing a parallel count showing Mondlane winning with 53%; the result was also questioned by the Episcopal Conference of Mozambique and the European Union Election Observation Mission. The EU EOM specifically found that TVM and Rádio Moçambique news coverage was biased in favour of FRELIMO and Daniel Chapo, with TVM news allocating 44% of airtime to FRELIMO, 18% to RENAMO, and 16% to MDM, a finding that directly evidences TVM’s structural editorial alignment with the ruling party.

President Chapo was inaugurated on 15 January 2025 despite ongoing protests. Maria Benvinda Levi, a former Justice Minister (2008–2015) and judge of the Maputo City Court, was appointed Prime Minister, leading a substantially restructured cabinet. Chapo retained only one minister from the Nyusi government (Defence Minister Cristóvão Chume, ensuring continuity in the war against Islamist insurgents in Cabo Delgado). The new administration has launched a National Inclusive Dialogue process with opposition parties, while TVM coverage has aligned with the Chapo administration’s communications priorities, including the Cabo Delgado security situation, the Mozambique LNG project (operated by TotalEnergies), and the government’s state-reform programme.

Mozambique ranked 99th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2026 World Press Freedom Index, up from 101st in 2025. RSF states that a significant number of Mozambican media outlets are directly or indirectly controlled by the authorities or FRELIMO, and that FRELIMO’s influence was evident during the 2023 municipal and 2024 general elections, when EU observers noted unbalanced electoral coverage. During the post-election crisis, Amnesty International cited monitoring data from Plataforma DECIDE indicating around 315 people killed and more than 3,000 injured between 21 October 2024 and 16 January 2025, alongside arbitrary arrests, journalist intimidation, and internet restrictions.

AI and digital policy

TVM operates tvm.co.mz as its primary digital portal, substantially modernised on 3 February 2026 with the launch of the Portal de Comunicação offering exclusive on-demand content, alongside YouTube, Facebook, and X/Twitter presences. No public TVM AI policy, content-provenance commitment (e.g. C2PA), or disclosure framework for AI-generated content was identified in the publicly available record, a documented absence rather than a definitive institutional claim. At the national level, AI and data-governance policy work is led by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformation (MCTD) through the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (INTIC).

May 2026