Oromia Broadcasting Network

The Oromia Broadcasting Network (OBN) is a regional public service broadcaster headquartered in Adama, Ethiopia. It is the leading media organization in the Oromia Region and broadcast on Eutelsat via the Ethiosat platform.

Oromia Broadcasting Network
LaunchedJune 2012
NetworkTelevision network
Owned byOromia Radio and Television Organization (ORTO)
Picture format1080p (HDTV) & 576i (SDTV), 16:9)
SloganSagalee Uummataa (Afaan Oromo)
የህዝብ ድምፅ (Amharic)
Voice of the People (English)
CountryEthiopia
Formerly calledETV 2 and TVO
Websiteobn.net
Availability
Satellite
Ethiosat11512-H-27500-3/4(HD)

History

The channel is run by the Oromia Radio and Television Organization (ORTO), founded on July 12, 2006 by Proclamation number 113/2006 of the Regional Government, as Oromia mass media organization (OMMO). The organization was renamed by the regional government to Oromia Radio and TV Organization by the Proclamation No. 164/2011 in 2011.

Notably Abiy Ahmed was a board member of the organization that runs OBN before assuming the office of Prime Minister. [1]

In February 2018 the president of the Oromia regional state, Lemma Megersa, pledged to defend the independence and impartiality of the state-run Oromia Broadcasting Network (OBN), among others. He stated this after a central committee meeting in Adama by the OPDO, the Oromo faction of the ruling EPRDF party that controls the Oromia region.[2]

Programming

Content is mostly focused on news from the Oromia regional state, but also covers news from the national and international levels. The majority of broadcasts are in Afaan Oromo (the native language of the Oromo people) with some programs in Amharic (the federal language of Ethiopia) and English.

Political significance

Many prominent Oromo leaders in the government of Ethiopia use OBN as a platform to reach the majority of the Afaan Oromo speaking population such as when leading OPDO figure Abadula Gemeda announced his displeasure with the government's mistreatment of internally displaced Oromo people in 2017.[3]

In March 2018 OBN was the first to confirm a deadly incident in the border town of Moyale via an interview with the town's mayor.[4]

Controversy

The Oromia Media Networks along with two broadcasters, Tigray TV and Dimtse Woyane were alleged to dissiminate media propaganda by Ethiopian government following the death of Hachalu Hundessa on June 29, 2020. These three networks considered operated by two political parties, Oromo Liberation Front and Tigray People's Liberation Front, the oppressive ultranationalist parties whose ultimate goals are to take over the sovereignty powers. The two parties were labeled as "terrorist agent" by the government and responsible for inciting violence after Hachalu Hundessa death. The Federal Attorney-General launched an investigation on three broadcasters in connection with alleged roles in inciting ethnic violence in Ethiopia. The channels has been breaching the broadcasting laws and warned to lift off-air in Ethiopia and ordered to shut down proclamation as of July 6. However the channels guarantee for broadcast via international networks, primarily using North American networks.[5]

gollark: We've reached a point where quantum computers can do *some stuff* faster than classical ones, in that while it would be theoretically possible to emulate... Sycamore, or whatever it was, the one Google or someone had for "quantum supremacy" or something... on a supercomputer, it would take several days to do what it did in two minutes.
gollark: Something like that?
gollark: We do have real quantum computers, just not very practical ones.
gollark: And is cheaper.
gollark: But on the other hand, it actually works.

References
  1. Lemma, S. (April 2, 2018). "10 quick facts about Ethiopia's new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed". opride.
  2. "OPDO's silence on Bekele Gerba, others still in jail, detrimental to its reformist image". opride. February 7, 2018.
  3. "Oromo: Speaker of Ethiopian Parliament Resigns to Protest Mistreatment of his Ethnic Group". UNPO. October 16, 2017.
  4. Rahman Alfa Shaban, Abdur (March 11, 2018). "Ethiopia military unit 'mistakenly' kills nine in Moyale, residents flee into Kenya". Africanews.
  5. "Dimtsi Weyane,Tigray Television off-air as of Monday". Borkena Ethiopian News. 2020-07-07. Retrieved 2020-07-30.
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