Madagascar

Madagascar, the world’s fourth-largest island and second-largest island nation with approximately 31.6 million inhabitants, has one of the most narrowly concentrated state media architectures in the State Media Monitor dataset, with a single chartered state broadcaster operating both television and radio under one institutional roof. The country’s media-regulatory framework rests on the Code de la Communication Médiatisée, adopted in 2016 and amended in 2020, which decriminalised press offences but introduced fines for “spreading fake news,” “contempt,” and “defamation,” and grants authorities the power to close media outlets or ban programmes deemed likely to disturb public order. The 2020 amendments also legislated the creation of a new Autorité Nationale de Régulation de la Communication Médiatisée (ANRCM) to grant media licences, but this provision has not taken effect as of April 2026, with broadcasting regulation continuing under the Autorité de Régulation des Technologies de Communication (ARTEC). A proposed law on access to state-held information has been awaiting a vote for 16 years, and a draft law on human rights defenders and whistleblowers proposed in 2021 also remains unadopted. Importantly, Madagascar’s 2010 Constitution was suspended on 17 October 2025 in the wake of the political crisis described below, leaving constitutional protections for press freedom in interpretive limbo pending the Refondation programme’s promised constitutional revision.

State media in Madagascar is concentrated in a single institution: the Office de la Radio et de la Télévision Publique de Madagascar (ORTM), which operates the national television service Televiziona Malagasy (TVM), established on 24 December 1967 under Madagascar’s first president Philibert Tsiranana, and the national radio service Radio Nationale Malagasy (RNM). ORTM is legally organised as an Établissement Public à caractère Administratif à vocation sociale et culturelle (EPA), under the technical supervision of the Ministry of Communication and Culture, currently headed by Mandrindrarivony O’Gascar Fenosoa, confirmed in the Rajaonarison cabinet of 25 March 2026. In August 2025, the Council of Ministers authorised technical tests for a new ORTM channel, TVM2, a 24/7 news-oriented service primarily in Malagasy with French and English programming. There is no Malagasy state news agency, no state-owned newspaper of record, and no regional state broadcasters, an institutional concentration that distinguishes Madagascar from most countries in the SMM dataset and reflects the consolidation of public broadcasting into a single EPA rather than the more typical Francophone-African pattern of separate state radio, state television, state press agency, and state newspaper. The privately owned media landscape, by contrast, is highly polarised and politicised: former president Marc Ravalomanana owns Radio-Television Analamanga (RTA), and deposed president Andry Rajoelina owns Viva TV and Viva Radio, an ownership-political alignment that has structurally limited access to neutral information.

The 2024–2026 period has been dominated by Madagascar’s most consequential political crisis since 2009. Beginning on 25 September 2025, Gen Z-led protests, initially triggered by chronic water and power outages and rapidly broadening into a generalised anti-government movement, culminated in a mutiny by the elite CAPSAT military unit on 11–12 October 2025. President Andry Rajoelina fled the country aboard a French Air Force aircraft on 12 October; the National Assembly impeached him on 14 October by 130 votes in favour and one blank ballot. Colonel Michaël Randrianirina was sworn in as Madagascar’s transitional leader (President of the Refoundation of the Republic) on 17 October 2025, the constitution was suspended, and the African Union immediately suspended Madagascar for “unconstitutional change of government.” At least 22 people were killed during the September–October protest cycle, and the military attempted to seize the state broadcaster on 12–13 October, delaying Rajoelina’s pre-recorded address to the nation twice and ultimately forcing it to be issued via the official Facebook page of the presidency rather than via TVM.

Madagascar improved from 113th to 103rd in the Reporters Without Borders 2026 World Press Freedom Index, an apparent ten-place gain that nonetheless leaves the country in the “problematic” category and reflects relative deterioration elsewhere on the continent more than absolute improvement domestically. The Rajaonarison cabinet inaugurated on 25 March 2026 succeeded the brief Rajaonarivelo cabinet (28 October 2025 – 9 March 2026), with the transition government promising elections within 18 to 24 months. ORTM’s institutional position has not been altered by the transition, although on 19 November 2025 the Council of Ministers replaced the broadcaster’s Director-General and the Directors of RNM and TVM, appointing Lemana Nalimbinjanaharin’Ainasoa Festin Elisée, Rasoloarison Harimbola Monica, and Randrianiaina Miorahasina Lorah respectively. The supervisory and editorial-capture pattern that the CaPu typology captures remains intact.

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