Media in Togo

Togo's media system includes 99 declared print publications and 93 authorized radio stations recorded at the end of 2024. The radio sector includes commercial, community and faith-based stations, with regional coverage in Maritime, Plateaux, Centrale, Kara and Savanes. About nine television channels were authorized, including the public broadcaster TVT. Other public media include Radio Lomé, Radio Kara, Togo-Presse and four state rural radio stations. HARC maintains separate registers for online press, web radios and web TV. HARC is Togo's current media regulator and handles media regulation, press freedom, ethics, pluralism, access to official media, election reporting and advertising. The Ministère de la Communication et des Médias handles state media and media policy. ARCEP oversees telecommunications networks, frequencies, electronic access and quality of service. OTM provides media self-regulation. Complaints about media regulation can go to HARC, while telecommunications and access complaints can go to ARCEP after the customer first contacts the relevant company. That company should respond within a maximum of seven days before the matter is escalated to ARCEP. The main legal framework for print, audiovisual and online press is Loi n°2020-001. Social networks are outside this press-code regime and remain subject to ordinary law. A blog or institutional website without journalism as its main purpose is not automatically a société de presse en ligne. Online press organizations use HARC declaration or authorization procedures. Foreign correspondents and special envoys need accreditation through HARC. Journalists can qualify through a journalism diploma, a licence with at least three years of practice, or a BTS with at least five years of practice, and can obtain a press card through HARC. Their rights include access to sources, research, accreditation, a conscience clause and protection of their person and work materials. Their duties include independence, professional ethics, source and privacy protection, confidentiality, and avoiding payment for publication, incitement, false information and defamation. Television and radio remain central because mobile and fixed internet access is uneven. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Togo recorded 7,688,649 mobile subscriptions, 5,624,336 mobile-data subscriptions and 4,310,286 mobile-broadband subscriptions. Mobile penetration was 90.13%, mobile-data penetration 65.93% and fixed-data penetration 1.58%; multiple SIM cards mean subscriptions do not equal unique users. ITU data for 2024 put internet use at 39.5% of the population and 2G, 3G and LTE mobile coverage at 99.7%. In Grand Lomé, measured quality of service was 83.48% for YAS and 82.14% for Moov, compared with 72.94% and 51.25% outside Grand Lomé. Togo has no evidenced independent national SVoD service comparable to a large domestic subscription platform. Practical alternatives include local live or replay offers, HARC-listed web TV and web radio, YouTube and social-media distribution, and CANAL+ Togo through an app or decoder. CANAL+ packages were listed at 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 and 25,000 FCFA per month, with roughly 260 to more than 350 television and radio channels depending on the package; content and rights can change. Social media are widely used for informal distribution and participation, although they are not press organizations under the press code. DataReportal estimated about 934,000 social-media user identities in January 2025, equal to 9.7% of the total population and 26.2% of internet users; these figures do not represent unique people. Media reports, especially political reports, require source checking because the market is formally plural but faces political influence and self-censorship risks. HARC suspended France 24 and RFI for three months on 16 June 2025 over alleged inaccurate or biased reporting. Children and young people account for a substantial part of the audience: people aged 10 to 19 represented about 23% of the population in the available research. Ados’TV is a local web-TV example. The reviewed sources did not establish a unified national age-rating, watershed or parental-control system. Online privacy, cyberbullying, sexual exploitation and disinformation therefore rely on general child-protection, criminal and data-protection law together with platform controls. IPDCP is the data-protection authority. HARC also guarantees equitable access to official media for political parties, associations, trade unions and citizens, including in election coverage. It supports election monitoring, pluralism and equal access, and held training for local-election reporting and the Code de bonne conduite in 2025. Terrestrial radio and television normally have no direct user fee, but data, devices and online access depend on tariffs and market conditions. HARC forms are used for declarations, cards and accreditations, while reliable standard fees and processing times were not published in the reviewed material. Press-support applications in 2025 required at least 12 months of existence for print outlets, continuous operation from 1 May 2025 to 30 April 2026 for radio and television, and daily renewal for online or streaming services; HARC handled the applications.