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24-Aug-2005
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By Kyaw Zwa Moe/Cambodia
September 2004

Cambodians are tuning in to the country’s cheapest and most accessible news source.

Her cute, red, mobile phone is not just for dialing. She also uses it to tune in to radio. The third-year university student doesn’t want to miss radio programs broadcast by radio stations, even while traveling from her Cambodian village to Phnom Penh.

Chum Kolab, who lives in Cabar Ampevo village, about 15 km from Phnom Penh, says she listens to the radio for several hours a day.

“I can get important information as well as fun from radio programs without spending money and time,” Kolab said, admiring the tiny phone in the palm of her hand. “I listen to the radio even while working and travelling.”

Kolab is by no means untypical. “If you go to the market at our village, you can’t avoid the noise of radio broadcasts that everyone tunes in to,” she says. “They begin turning on their portable radios from about six in the morning. I’d say that all villagers listen to radio.”

In Sdao Kanleng, 24 km east of Phnom Penh, 65-year-old Chhun Chhum can be seen every day sitting on a wooden bench in his home listening to the radio, which he switches on early every morning.

While Chhum listens in, his son describes the old man’s radio routine: after waking around six o’clock he tunes in to the Voice of America, or VOA, and Radio Free Asia, or RFA. Later he listens to other FM radio stations—one of his favorites is Beehive FM105, widely considered Cambodia’s only truly independent radio station.

A majority of Cambodia’s population of more than 13 million people listen regularly to the radio, a source of news and entertainment. One reason for radio’s popularity is that it’s free, says Kolab.

Cambodia is among the world’s poorest countries; with about a third of the population living below the poverty line, newspapers are a luxury few can afford. Only two-thirds of the adult population is literate, so many Cambodians couldn’t read a newspaper even if they could afford one. Most remote communities don’t receive any newspapers at all.

If you go to the market at our village, you can’t avoid the noise of radio broadcasts that everyone tunes in to

 For the non-Khmers of Cambodia, radio is an indispensable source of news and entertainment. The Vietnamese, Indian and Chinese inhabitants of Cambodia who can’t read Khmer turn automatically to the radio.

Cambodia currently has about 15 radio stations—two AM stations and the rest FM. Almost all are controlled by the government and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, and carry news of official state activities—and little else. A few are run by other political parties and NGOs. The leader of the main opposition party, Sam Rainsy, however, is not allowed to broadcast.

FM90, though, is run by Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s royalist party, the National United Front for a Neutral, Peaceful, Cooperative and Independent Cambodia, or FUNCINPEC. Another station, FM102, is operated by the Women’s Media Center, a non-governmental organization.

To find criticism of the government and its policies, as well as replayed news from VOA and RFA, listeners must tune in to FM105, or Beehive Radio, known locally as Sambok Khmum. For its services, it is the country’s most popular broadcaster.

RFA’s shortwave broadcasts, which give blanket coverage of local news, and VOA’s AM service also command a big audience. VOA has the edge over RFA because its AM broadcasts are easier to pick up in remote areas, according to the radio’s Phnom Penh-based correspondent, Seng Ratana.

“VOA is very powerful,” admits Minister of Information Lu Lay Sreng.

Cambodia’s print journalists concede that radio reaches more people than newspapers, but question its reliability and actuality.

The editor of the newspaper Rasmei Kampuchea (“Light of Cambodia”), Pen Samitthy, maintains that radios just replay news and information that have already been carried by newspapers. Most radio stations can’t produce their own reports, he says.

Reporter Ky Soklim of the French-language Cambodge Soi newspaper, says, “Almost all of the media are affiliated with the political parties in some way.”

Soklim believes, like most commentators, that more people listen to the radio than read newspapers for economic reasons: radio is free while the price of newspapers is beyond the pockets of many Cambodians.

Newspapers cost between 1,000 riel (25 US cents) and 3,500 riel—A considerable daily investment for a government employee earning $30 a month.

An elderly man in Tuol village, Baseth District, Kompong Speu province, is typical: his village has a shop selling newspapers but he never buys one.

The university student Kolab, too, seldom buys the paper. “Newspapers bore me,” she says. “The things they cover are just cliches.”

You can certainly see people reading the press in newspaper shops, but most are paging through the papers without buying them. One shop-owner in Siem Reap said she sells about 200 newspapers a day, but many more customers read for free.

Cambodians check out the luxury goods at the newsstand.

Newspaper circulations are consequently small, and even the country’s best-selling Rasmei Kampuchea has a print run of only 20,000. Some newspapers get by on a circulation of about 500.

Most of Cambodia’s 20 or so newspapers are based in Phnom Penh and are available only in 24 provincial capitals. Fully 70 percent of Rasmei Kampuchea’s circulation is confined to the capital. 

In June, the Somne Thmey (“New Writing”) began publishing a local newspaper in Khmer in four major provinces: Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, Battambang and Kompong Cham. As Cambodia’s first truly provincial newspaper covering local issues, Somne Thmey’s content varies according to the location; in Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat, for example, much coverage is dedicated to tourism. The papers are published every two weeks with the help of US-based Asia Foundation.

The paper initially planned to print 1,000 copies for each of the four provinces, although a reporter for Somne Thmey in Siem Reap estimates that actual sales—at 25 US cents a copy—are still below 100 there.

Television, of course, is another media option, but—unlike radio and newspapers—it’s totally controlled by the government and Premier Hun Sen’s party. Two of the seven TV stations—Apsara and Bayon—are run by Hun Sen personally and by his party, while the army controls one station and the government controls the rest.

Apsara reporter Prom Vicheth Sophea describes Apsara as the “party station” and Bayon as the “family station” and is critical of them both.

“We need to change the programs we’re running now, they contain nothing interesting,” Sophea says. “We’re media, we should follow news. But most officials in our TV station don’t care about information, they just care about the party. That means they don’t work for an audience, but for the party.”

There is one reliably independent news source—the Internet—but that’s also too expensive for most people. Internet cafes and shops in Phnom Penh charge about 2,000 riel (50 US cents) an hour to access the Web, but once outside the capital charges rocket. One foreign journalist visiting northeastern Ratanikiri said the province’s sole Internet cafe charged customers $5 an hour. “That’s criminal,” he fumed.

Charges like those are totally outside most local budgets. Internet caf้s are only in some major cities and most of them are only occupied by foreigners. Hang Sambopiphoas, owner of the Galaxy Web Internet caf้ in downtown Phnom Penh, says 90 percent of the 200 or so customers a day using his facilities are foreigners. A few local students are among his clientele, but they’re mostly just checking their email boxes—Kolab, who is majoring in Computer Science, says she uses the Internet only once a week to read emails from friends.

The Internet came to Cambodia seven years ago and has succeeded in escaping government control.

The government initially allowed two Internet service providers to operate: Camnet and Bigpond. Four others followed: TeleSURF, Shinawatra, Online and Caminet.

In seven years, the service providers have attracted only 40,000 subscribers. Three main barriers block the way to greater Internet use, according to the National Information Communications Technology Development Authority Secretary General, Phu Leewood: cost, the lack of telephone landlines and lack of language proficiency.  

But even many government officials and professionals shun the Internet. Rasmei Kampuchea editor Pen Samitthy says most journalists write their reports as hard copy and don’t use Internet and its email possibilities.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy is skeptical of all media outlets, with the possible exception of radio. Any media form is subject in certain ways to Cambodian government control, he maintains.

Yet when pressed to name the medium that most Cambodians rely on for information, he says without hesitation: “The radio.”

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