The Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) is a Zambian television and radio station, formerly state owned, now technically a statutory body but still essentially under government control.
[2] From the outset, the Lusaka station addressed programs to Africans in their own languages, becoming the pioneer in the field of local vernacular broadcasting in Africa.
[3] In 1945, Harry Franklin, Director of the Information Department,[1] proposed that Radio Lusaka be developed into a fully-fledged station broadcasting exclusively to Africans.
Franklin tried for three years in the late 1940s to persuade British manufacturers that a potential mass market existed among Africans for a very simple inexpensive battery operated short wave receiver, in the era before transistors, before finally persuading a battery company to invest in the research and development of the idea.
Franklin had hopes of capitalising on a world market for the sets, but within a few years the transistor radio came into mass production and so turned his brainchild into a mere historical curiosity.
[citation needed] In 1953, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was established, with Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) as its capital, and the Southern Rhodesian Broadcasting Service, which catered for European listeners, became the Federal Broadcasting Service (FBS).
[15] However, disagreements between the three constituent territories of the Federation led to its break-up in 1964, after which Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland would gain independence as Zambia and Malawi.
Radio 1 is carried over 8 FM transmitters, broadcasting in the seven major languages of Bemba, Nyanja, Lozi, Tonga, Kaonde, Lunda and Luvale.