New African Passion : Gabon Taps Into a World of Television

In the remotest corners of this jungle-covered nation, antennas sprout from wooden shacks. A pulse of electricity comes from small generators, traveling over lines slung between tree limbs slashed from the forest.

Inside those homes is the warm glow of the 20th Century: television.

Nearly 400 miles northwest of here, in a seaside palace in the capital, Libreville, President Omar Bongo likes to watch a bit of television, too--when the television cameras are not watching him. And not just the local fare.

One of Bongo’s satellite dishes taps an American TV signal and re-transmits it to most of Libreville. His favorites are the Cable News Network and American football. Like most Gabonese, Bongo doesn’t speak English. But he loves television.

Passion for the Tube

Bongo’s passion for the tube has brought television to these far reaches of Gabon. This nation of less than 1 million people has one of the most extensive national television systems in black-ruled Africa, and the people are falling in love with television.

“It’s funny, but two years ago it was not so important to have a TV in Gabon,” Nicolas Nyalas, a television sales manager in Libreville, said the other day. “But lately it is as important to have a TV set as to have food.”

As Nyalas spoke, a display of four color televisions in his store were showing “Late Night With David Letterman.”

Over much of Africa, television is in its infancy. Small, government-run stations with limited broadcast ranges, scant funding and poorly trained staff are the norm.

One television set still costs more than a year’s wage in at least a dozen countries here, electricity is rare outside major cities and the continent has only one television for every 450 people, on average. The United States has one set for every 1.6 people.

2 Hours a Week in Mali

In Mali, where 8 million people have just 800 TV sets, there is not much to watch--the lone channel is on the air only two hours a week.

Cape Verde, a tiny collection of islands off West Africa, has 500 TV sets--and no TV station. Viewers there make do with videotapes or back yard satellite dishes.

Radio, not television, has been the medium of independent sub-Saharan Africa and the voice of its governments. Nearly every leader keeps his radio studios and transmission towers behind formidable fences; a coup d’etat cannot succeed without control of the radio station.

Running a television station is a major investment for countries mired in debt, and sometimes television is used for little more than feeding a president’s ego. For years, Zaire’s television station opened each day’s broadcast by showing on the screen a brilliant, majestic sun that slowly turned into President Mobutu Sese Seko’s face.

Most African leaders consider television a valuable tool for national development and education. But they are also wary. Its power to mesmerize and shape public opinion seems as awesome and unpredictable as a bolt of lightning on a continent still slowly finding its way into the modern world.

Gabon is an oil-rich, little-developed country, a former French colony straddling the Equator on the west coast of Africa. Less than six months ago, 11 new microwave transmitters began beaming a government television station, Channel One, across this land the size of Colorado. Few African television stations have such range. Sudan’s station, like Gabon’s, covers most of the country. But more typical is Somalia, where the lone television station does not reach viewers more than 20 miles from the capital.

Here in Franceville, the most distant inland receiving station, some villagers had bought their television months early, putting the darkened sets in their homes and waiting patiently for the television signal to arrive.

Their screen lighted up one Saturday in August. Equasat, as the national system is known here, was inaugurated with a ceremony showing off the new technology. President Bongo and the nine provincial governors spoke to the nation, on live television, from their offices scattered throughout the countryside.

1 Set Per 33 People

Now the country has about 30,000 television sets, or one for every 33 people--nearly seven times the rate in Kenya, one of sub-Saharan Africa’s more developed countries, for example. Several dozen stores sell televisions. One shop, CK3, sells seven or eight color sets a week, and a salesman there estimates that about 90% of the households in Libreville have a set.

U.S. Ambassador Warren Clark Jr. recently traveled through Gabon’s interior and was struck by the number of people who recognized him from his visits with Bongo.

“Everywhere I went, people said, ‘I’ve seen you on TV,’ “Clark said.

Television sets are expensive, though. Prices range from $1,000 to $2,000. A 20-inch color Sanyo model, for example, carries a price tag of 350,000 African francs, or about $1,400. And in rural areas without electricity, new television owners must also buy generators to supply the power for them.

“Television is fascinating. It’s like magic,” said Eloi Mensan, a Gabonese store clerk. Since buying a television last year, Mensan has become a movie fan; he particularly liked something called “Animal Man” that played recently on the national channel.

Spices Up Evenings

Television’s appeal here is the same as elsewhere in the world. It adds spice to dreary evenings by entertaining, showing far-off places and telling stories, and the prime-time soap operas and other programs are a popular topic of conversation.

Gabon is one of the Third World’s wealthier countries, with large reserves of oil and strategic minerals. While much of rural Gabon remains poor, the country’s enormous civil service is highly paid, and some of that money ends up with relatives in the countryside.

“Owning a TV is a luxury, but people will make sacrifices for entertainment,” said Ghislaine Beaucher, who runs a store called Audio-Video Technique, which sells televisions and rents videotapes. To join Beaucher’s videotape club, customers pay a non-refundable $200 initiation fee and then $3.25 per tape. Even at those high prices, she rents about 50 tapes a week.

Nearly all television buyers in Libreville ask for international sets specially designed to receive American as well as local programs.

Language No Big Barrier

“People want to see CNN and sports,” said Nyalas, the sales manager. Asked about the language barrier, he shrugged.

“Some people rich enough to afford American TVs are able to catch a bit of the English,” he said.

Gabonese television carries a mix of entertainment, from French movies and television dramas to French-dubbed versions of “Miami Vice” and “Starsky & Hutch.” “Dallas” occupies a prime slot, Saturday nights at 9 o’clock on Channel One. “Santa Barbara” shows up on Channel Two, a supplementary station not seen outside the capital.

The lineup on Channel One, on the air from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., blends traditional and modern Africa, from native dancing to bandes dessinees --cartoons. A tribal elder tells stories on one program, using color television to encourage Africa’s oral traditions.

A few programs are broadcast live. On “ Allo Docteur ,” doctors answer questions called in by viewers. Not long ago the topic was AIDS, and the number of callers was so large that the scheduled one-hour show, which began at 9:30 p.m., continued until 3:30 a.m.

Televised Execution

About two years ago Gabonese television went live to the beach in Libreville to broadcast the execution of an air force captain convicted of attempting to assassinate Bongo.

An unofficial extra channel is tuned to American television programs on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS), which broadcasts everything from the “Today Show” to “60 Minutes” to most major sporting events. The United States has no military presence in Gabon, but the AFRTS signal is retrieved by the country’s Earth station.

Bongo, Gabon’s president for 20 years, has become a genuine television personality--a mediatique , some call him.

The president was at the top of his form one night in December when, live on the 8 o’clock national news, he went to see a group of Iranian refugees who had been on a hunger strike to protest their deportation from France to Gabon. Later, still on the air, he gently urged two Iranians in the hospital to at least take a sip of water. The Iranians obliged.

Bongo told the Iranians he had welcomed them to Gabon as a humanitarian gesture because “no one else wanted you.” He added: “It would be silly not to eat.”

“It was an amazing performance,” a Western diplomat here said.

The appeal was not successful; the hunger strike continued until France agreed this month to let the Iranians return. But Bongo was able to explain to his nation why he had let the Iranians into the country in the first place.

President ‘Natural Actor’

The president is no matinee idol--he is 5 feet 2 inches tall, round-faced and slightly portly--yet the camera loves him. His voice is earnest and sonorous, and he talks to the television audience as if he were entertaining close friends.

“He speaks like us, not like an intellectual,” a Gabonese teacher explains. “He has a knack for saying things in such a way that people understand. The man is a natural actor.”

The allegory is his favorite device. In one televised speech, he talked about the common bond all Gabonese share, whether they live here or abroad.

“You can put a piece of wood in the water for years and it will not become a crocodile,” he said. “It may look like a crocodile. But it’s still a piece of wood.”

Bongo modestly waves off questions about his television performances.

“It is not up to me to judge myself,” he said recently. “You must ask the people.”

But he worries about dominating the tube.

“I don’t want to tire the people with my being always on TV,” he said. “So I usually appear only at the beginning and the end of the newscast.”

Tool for Education

Television has become one of the president’s tools for fostering education and creating a national identity for a country of isolated villages amid thousands of acres of uncharted jungle.

“This is something that brings the nation together,” Bongo said in his office, decorated with raspberry red furniture, a gold-inlaid desk and three large color television sets. Outside his office door, his guards watched native dancers on television. “TV is important for any modern nation. This is proof that Gabon is a modern country.”

Over the past few years, Gabon has invested about $150 million in its communication system, which includes television, radio and direct-dial telephone switching. Although the sharp drop in oil prices has postponed expansion plans, Gabon hopes to one day install 25 more Earth stations to reach even smaller, more remote settlements.

Wants to Extend Reach

Bongo already has a powerful radio station, Africa No. 1, that can be heard throughout much of the continent. It has about 15 million French-speaking listeners. Now he wants to do the same thing with television, adding a third channel that could be received far outside Gabon’s borders. He has already bought satellite space, for about $1 million, to broadcast to the rest of Africa.

So far, at least, television seems to have been good for Gabon.

“TV can distract you from reading or other pursuits, but it makes people better-informed about the world,” said Laurent Owondo, a Gabonese professor and prize-winning novelist. “When I talk to young people today I realize how limited I was growing up.”

Western diplomats here marvel at Gabon’s auspicious entry into the world of high technology.

“There are very few achievements on this continent that have come from African money, and this is one of them,” Bernard Dussault, the Canadian ambassador, said in a recent interview. “Gabon is building a capacity, an African capacity, to play with television technology. That’s essential, and I think it’s beautiful.”