Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC)

Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) is Uganda’s national public broadcaster, operating a portfolio of television and radio services across the country. UBC was established by the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Act of 2005, which merged the operations of Uganda Television (UTV) and Radio Uganda under a single corporate umbrella, and began broadcasting on 16 November 2005. The broadcaster’s institutional lineage stretches back to the Uganda Broadcasting Service (UBS), established by the British colonial administration in 1954 and initially used to broadcast BBC external-service content; following independence in 1962, UBS was renamed Radio Uganda. Television broadcasting in Uganda began in October 1963 with the establishment of Uganda Television (UTV). Until the 1980s, both radio and television operated as government communication channels.

The 2005 corporate consolidation was intended to position UBC as a public service broadcaster, with funding originally envisaged through a television licence fee set at UShs 20,000 per household. Collection of the licence fee was suspended by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni shortly after introduction, leaving UBC dependent on direct government subventions. UBC’s headquarters are located at Plot 17–19 Nile Avenue, Nakasero Hill, Kampala, with broadcasting infrastructure and transmission sites distributed across the country.

Media assets

Television: Uganda Television (UTV), Magic 1, U24, Star TV

Radio: Radio Uganda, Regional Radio (UBC Butebo FM, UBC Radio Uganda, UBC West FM, UBC Star FM, Totore FM- Nginajok (Karamoja region), UBC Westnile FM, Magic 100.0, Mega FM, Ubc Voice of Bundibugyo FM, Ngeya FM, UBC Buruli FM)

Ownership and governance

UBC is wholly owned by the Government of Uganda and operates under the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation Act of 2005. The broadcaster falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Information, Communication Technology and National Guidance. UBC’s chief governing body is a Board of Directors consisting of eight members appointed by the government for fixed terms, traditionally four years, although the most recent board was appointed for a three-year term. The Minister responsible for ICT and National Guidance oversees these appointments, maintaining tight executive control over governance.

The current Board, reconstituted in August 2023, is chaired by Dr James Tumusiime, who is serving his second consecutive term, and is reported by UBC to include Ibrahim Makoma, Hon. Hamlet Mbabazi Kabushenga, Mr Moses Watasa, Hon. Turyahikayo Mary Paula, Hon. Tezira Jamwa, and Hon. Sarah Namumbya, alongside the Managing Director. Mr Winston Agaba David, appointed on 1 June 2015 by the Board after an extended search process, continues to serve as Managing Director, the position widely considered the de facto Chief Executive Officer.

The broadcaster’s regulatory and policy environment is shaped jointly by the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance and by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), which regulates spectrum, broadcast licensing, and digital terrestrial television. In January 2023, Members of Parliament renewed calls to merge UBC with the New Vision Group, citing persistent underperformance despite repeated state bailouts. Since January 2023, no new official proposals, negotiations, or legislative action have materialised on the merger question, and UBC continues to receive its budget allocations and engage in digital modernisation efforts. The corporation has also pursued international partnerships, including a 2025 collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to boost media capacity and technology, and a co-hosting role with UCC and Broadcast Media Africa for the 2025 Broadcast & Digital Media Convention held in Kampala in May 2025.

Source of funding and budget

UBC’s finances rely heavily on government subventions, with only a modest share generated from advertising and commercial revenue. According to figures cited in the State Media Monitor 2025 baseline, government subsidies to UBC have ranged across the UGX 18–45 billion band in recent fiscal years, with an additional supplementary allocation of UGX 25 billion reported in December 2023 to cover operational shortfalls. The same baseline reports that UBC sought UGX 173 billion in the 2024/25 budget cycle (including UGX 10.3 billion earmarked for wages) and had earlier requested UGX 66 billion for a digital transformation initiative, a request that drew parliamentary criticism as disproportionate.

The broadcaster’s financial position has continued to deteriorate. According to reporting by CEO East Africa on the Auditor General’s Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2025, UBC reported a loss after tax of UGX 7.5 billion in the 2024/2025 financial year, a sharp deterioration from the UGX 1.432 billion loss recorded the previous year. The report cited weak liquidity, declining revenues, ageing infrastructure, and persistent funding gaps. Advertising revenue remains minimal, and the broadcaster has struggled to develop independent revenue streams. In the June 2025 national budget cycle, UBC rallied behind a parliamentary call for sustained government support, with MPs echoing concerns that UBC is “losing ground” without additional funding to improve digital infrastructure and content reach.

Editorial independence

UBC’s editorial line is widely understood to operate under the direct influence of the executive branch, particularly the Office of the President, which exercises influence through government-controlled media-coordination arrangements. Although the UBC Act of 2005 sets out ethical and operational standards, these provisions are rarely enforced in practice. There is no permanent, independent oversight mechanism to ensure editorial independence or professional accountability.

Election-monitoring evidence from prior cycles is particularly well documented: reporting by the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME) described UBC Television’s coverage of the December 2015 elections as heavily skewed toward incumbent President Museveni, with the broadcaster failing to allocate equitable airtime to opposition candidates as mandated by Ugandan electoral law; and the European Union Election Observation Mission following the 2016 polls described UBC’s reporting as demonstrating “extreme bias” through disproportionate positive coverage of government activities and minimal scrutiny of ruling-party claims, attributing this to structural dependencies on state funding and to board appointments controlled by the presidency. Historic patterns of pro-NRM coverage from these 2015–2016 monitoring exercises provide the strongest documentary basis for the editorial-capture assessment; no public UBC-specific 2026 election-monitoring report was identified in this review.

As Uganda’s official state broadcaster, UBC’s coverage of the 15 January 2026 general election was widely reported to be aligned with the NRM campaign and the official Electoral Commission narrative. The United States Senate described the vote as a “hollow exercise”; Human Rights Watch stated that the elections “were marred by human rights abuses”; and Amnesty International characterised the campaign environment as “a brutal campaign of repression”.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Uganda 131st of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, an improvement of 12 places from 143/180 in 2025, with Uganda shifting from a “very serious” to a “difficult” press freedom situation. RSF nevertheless named President Museveni as one of the Great Lakes region’s press freedom predators, alongside Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Félix Tshisekedi of the DRC, Évariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi, Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, and William Ruto of Kenya. The RSF 2026 country report noted that “journalists in Uganda face intimidation and violence on a nearly daily basis. The security services regularly target them, the leading perpetrators of attacks against reporters in the country, particularly during election periods”, and described Museveni’s “marked hostility towards privately owned media outlets and social media”.

AI and digital policy

UBC maintains a digital presence centred on its ubc.go.ug corporate site, live streaming, and social-media accounts across Facebook, X/Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. At the May 2025 Broadcast & Digital Media Convention co-hosted by UBC and UCC, Managing Director Winston Agaba addressed the impact of AI on journalism and called for blending traditional media ethics with emerging technologies. No publicly available evidence of a formal UBC policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure, or content provenance frameworks such as C2PA was identified in this review. At the national-policy level, the Uganda Communications Commission Act, the Computer Misuse Act, the Anti-Pornography Act, the Data Protection and Privacy Act, and online-content regulations issued by the Uganda Communications Commission shape the regulatory environment for digital content.

May 2026