Uhuru Media Group

Uhuru Media Group (UMG) is the media arm of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Tanzania’s long-standing ruling party. The group operates a network of print, radio, and television outlets that function as central pillars of the party’s public communications infrastructure. UMG’s flagship publication, Uhuru (“Independence”), was launched on Tanzania’s Independence Day, 9 December 1961, as a weekly successor to Sauti ya TANU, the Tanganyika African National Union party paper launched in 1957 and edited by Julius Nyerere. Uhuru became a daily in 1964; its Sunday counterpart Mzalendo (“The Patriot”) was launched on 30 April 1972. The corporate publisher of Uhuru and Mzalendo, Uhuru Publications Limited (UPL), was established by CCM in the early 1990s, succeeding the earlier Mwananchi Publishing Company (1966) Limited that had emerged from the 1966 split of TANU’s Mwananchi Printing and Publishing Company. Contemporary reporting identifies a broader portfolio of CCM-owned media outlets operating under or alongside UMG, including the Channel Ten television family (Channel Ten, Channel Ten Plus, C2C, CTN), the radio stations Uhuru Radio, Classic FM, and Magic FM, and the print and digital products Uhuru, Mzalendo, Uelekeo, and Burudani.

Media assets

Print and digital: Uhuru, Mzalendo, Uelekeo, Burudani

Television: Channel Ten, Channel Ten Plus, C2C, CTN

Radio: Uhuru Radio, Classic FM, Magic FM

Ownership and governance

Uhuru Media Group is owned by Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Tanzania’s ruling party since 1977 and continuous successor to TANU (in power on the mainland since independence in 1961) and the Afro-Shirazi Party (in power in Zanzibar since 1964). UPL’s ownership data is not on file at Tanzania’s Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (BRELA); the company is registered with Tanzania Information Services (MAELEZO) within the Ministry of Information as publisher of its print products. Television licences for the Channel Ten family are held by Africa Media Group Limited, with TCRA records identifying UMG as the dominant shareholder.

Senior editorial and executive appointments across UMG’s outlets are made through CCM party structures. The Citizen reported in 2017 that CCM appointed Mkinga Mkinga as UPL Managing Editor; historic Managing Editors of the post-independence party press include Roland Mwanjisi (the first MD), Joel Mgogo, and Benjamin William Mkapa, who later became the third President of the United Republic of Tanzania (1995–2005). UPL’s Board of Directors has historically been filled with senior CCM officials, ministers, and party cadres. The UMG/UPL board chaired by Adam Kimbisa resigned in September 2016 after a visit to UPL by then-CCM Chairman and President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Dr John Pombe Magufuli, during which employees reported unpaid salaries and mismanagement. The composition of any successor board has not been publicly disclosed in subsequent reporting.

Editorial decisions across UMG’s print, radio, and television outlets are coordinated with CCM’s information and ideology secretariat, the Itikadi na Uenezi directorate. In June 2025, CCM Secretary General Emmanuel Nchimbi publicly described UMG-affiliated outlets as the party’s voice and instructed them to publicise the Sixth Phase Government’s achievements and CCM manifesto priorities. The current Secretary of NEC for Ideology, Publicity, and Training is Kenani Kihongosi, who has appeared in CCM communications carried by Channel Ten in 2026.

Source of funding and budget

UMG appears to operate through a combination of party support, advertising, circulation, and broadcast-commercial revenues, but it does not publish detailed public financial statements, and the balance between party subsidy and commercial income is not transparent. UPL has historically not been a commercial proposition and was not designed to be one, its founding objective, articulated in Uhuru‘s first editorial of 9 December 1961, was to “champion the cause of Tanganyika’s freedom and solidarity for all the struggling people of the world,” with the publication characterised by its early editors as the “newspaper of the citizen” and educator.

Editorial independence

Uhuru Media Group’s editorial output is unambiguous in its support for CCM and its leadership. A Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) report on Tanzania’s media-capture environment describes Uhuru, alongside TBC and the Daily News, as known for strong support of government lines. Uhuru and Mzalendo give considerable attention to speeches of CCM and government leaders, dedicating editorial space to the implementation of the CCM manifesto, Vision 2025, and other development programmes; their news stories and editorials are written from the angle of the party and its government. Joel Mgogo, an early Managing Editor, openly acknowledged that he devoted 90% of the newspaper’s space to “preaching and exhorting” the party’s positions, a characterisation reinforced by the historian Martin Sturmer’s work on the Tanzanian press, and earlier summarised by the media scholar John Condon, who observed that “if President Nyerere is officially the Teacher (Mwalimu) of the nation, the party press is the Preacher.”

UMG operates without an internal editorial charter guaranteeing independence, and no external oversight mechanism reviews or assesses its editorial performance. The most striking recent indicator of the structural relationship between the party and the editorial product came on 11 August 2021, when the Tanzanian government issued a 14-day suspension of Uhuru, the first such suspension under President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s tenure, after the newspaper published a front-page story headlined “Sina wazo kuwania urais 2025 – Samia” (“I have no intention of running for the presidency in 2025 – Samia”). The Government Spokesperson, Gerson Msigwa, and the CCM Secretariat both disowned the reporting; CCM Secretary General Daniel Chongolo announced that the UPL Board had suspended three senior managers pending investigation. The suspension under the Media Services Act, and the simultaneous internal disciplinary action by the party itself, illustrated how the editorial process at UMG operates within boundaries set by the CCM apparatus.

AI and digital policy

Uhuru Media Group maintains a digital presence across Channel Ten’s website, the @channeltentz Facebook page, the Channel Ten Tanzania YouTube channel, and the @uhurutv_ Instagram account. No public-facing UMG 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 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.

May 2026