Malawi Digital Broadcast Network Limited will be a business entity that will provide competitive digital broadcasting services to sustain its operations, says Henry Mussa, the Minister of Information and Communications Technology.

The development comes as a response to the ministry’s admitted inability to sustain the institution’s operations, at the same time refusing to privatize it. MDBNL is now a parastatal with an appointed board to oversee it.

 “Private television stations are there to make money and if their existence on the MDBNL platform is not making economic sense, they may not be free” said Mussa, justifying the institution’s pay services.

MDBNL has been operating since 2015, selling its own decoders on which local and international channels are broadcasted on.