Cameroon

The Republic of Cameroon is a bilingual francophone-anglophone Central African republic, with a population of roughly 30 million and recent current-dollar GDP per capita estimates in roughly the US$1,800–2,200 range. The country operates under a highly presidential constitutional system: the President is Head of State and defines national policy, while the Prime Minister is formally Head of Government. Paul Biya of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) has held office since 6 November 1982, one of the world’s longest tenures among sitting heads of state, and was declared re-elected for an eighth term following the disputed 12 October 2025 presidential election, with his swearing-in held on 6 November 2025. French and English are the two official languages, reflecting Cameroon’s dual French and British colonial/trusteeship inheritances following the 1961 federation/reunification of French Cameroun, which gained independence on 1 January 1960, and the British-administered Southern Cameroons. The country comprises ten administrative regions and is the largest economy in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) zone, using the Central African CFA franc. Cameroon faces two protracted security crises that materially shape the operating environment for media: the Anglophone Crisis in the North-West and South-West regions, ongoing since 2016, and a long-running Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) insurgency in the Far North region.

The Cameroonian media-regulatory environment is shaped by the 1990 Liberty of Social Communication Law (Law No. 90/052), the 2010 Cybersecurity Law, and the Penal Code provisions on press offences. The 1990 press freedom law is widely characterised as being routinely circumvented, with no full decriminalisation of press offences, and neither access to information nor the confidentiality of journalists’ sources is effectively guaranteed in practice. The Ministry of Communication, headed by Minister René Emmanuel Sadi, is the supervisory authority for the state-aligned media sector. The sectoral regulator is the National Communication Council (Conseil National de la Communication, CNC), whose members are appointed by presidential decree; the CNC has sanctioning powers over media but has not functioned as an effective independent safeguard for state-broadcaster editorial autonomy.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Cameroon 133rd of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, a fall of two places from 131st in 2025, with a score of 40.88 (down from 42.75 in 2025) placing the country in the “difficult” category. RSF characterises Cameroon as having “one of the richest media landscapes in Africa”, with more than 600 newspapers, approximately 200 radio stations and more than 60 television channels, while at the same time describing it as “one of the continent’s most dangerous countries for journalists, who operate in a hostile and precarious environment”. Renowned journalist Martinez Zogo was kidnapped and murdered in early 2023. RSF has also highlighted the long-running case of former CRTV Director General Amadou Vamoulké, who was sentenced in embezzlement cases after years of proceedings — including 178 successive postponements characterised by RSF as “a sad world record” — that press-freedom organisations have denounced as politically driven. State aid to the media sector is regarded as insufficient and available only to outlets that toe the government line. In February 2026, the government launched the pilot phase of the Agence Virtuelle d’Information (AVI), a government virtual news agency producing content for domestic and international audiences, with the experimental phase officially launched on 4 February 2026.

Cameroon’s formal state-owned and state-controlled media architecture in this dataset comprises two organisations, both classified as State-Controlled (SC): Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) and the Société de Presse et d’Editions du Cameroun (SOPECAM).

Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) is Cameroon’s state-owned public broadcasting corporation, created as a public industrial and commercial establishment by Law No. 87/020 of 17 December 1987 and organised by Decree No. 88/126 of 25 January 1988. CRTV operates three main television services, CRTV (generalist), CRTV News (launched January 2018), and CRTV Sport (launched June 2019), alongside the Poste National radio service, ten regional radio stations covering all administrative regions, and local FM services including Suelaba FM 105 and Mount Cameroon FM. The corporation is supervised by the Ministry of Communication and headed by Director General Charles Pythagore Ndongo since his appointment by Presidential Decree No. 2016/272 of 29 June 2016. Cameroonian media reporting placed CRTV’s 2025 budget at nearly CFAF 31 billion and its 2026 budget at approximately CFAF 33.2 billion, with the broadcaster also generating commercial revenue through its commercial agency CMCA.

SOPECAM is Cameroon’s state-owned national press and publishing company, created by Decree No. 77/250 of 18 July 1977 and transformed by Decree No. 2016/216 of 28 April 2016into a public-capital company with the State as sole shareholder, with share capital fixed at CFAF 2,564,670,000. SOPECAM publishes Cameroon Tribune, Cameroon’s national bilingual title launched on 1 July 1974, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024, and has published or operated specialised titles including Nyanga, Weekend Sports et Loisirs, Cameroon Business Today and Cameroon Insider. The company has been led by Director General Marie Claire Nnana since 2002; State Media Monitor baseline reporting indicates that state subsidies account for more than half of SOPECAM’s operational budget.

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