Worldspace: Launching Africa into the digital information age

The World,Space goal is to create a new form of electronic media. But our vision is an ancient one: to spread knowledge for the good of mankind

-Noah Samara

You may not have heard of him yet, but Noah Samara, chairman and CEO of WorldSpace Inc., is leading Africa into the 21 st Century. He is a man of the future, a new century third-world visionary. He did not spend 27 years in prison for the cause of human rights. He has never won a Nobel Peace Prize or been seen on CNN leading a march against racial injustice. Yet Samara's quest to bring continental-wide, digital radio service to remote Africa, Asia and Latin America may well usher in a thirdworld communications revolution that could alter the course of history.

WorldSpace is Samara's brainchild, and it could well make this daring Ethiopian-born, naturalizedAmerican citizen a household name throughout the world. if ever a company reflected the values of its founder, WorldSpace is that company. Samara, 44, has ventured into territory where other great men of African descent have failed-working to create a platform that will engender panAfrican unity. Samara believes unity starts with addressing common problems.

"I wanted a way of reaching all Africans on issues such as AIDS, women's issues, issues involving governments, health, the environment," he says at his corporate offices in Washington, D.C. "The hope is that we can have continental or at least regional solutions to African problems in the 21st Century."

Samara believes these goals can be achieved with a healthy dose of information. He is seeking to close the "digital divide" by ensuring that every person of color in third world countries will have access to basic information:

"I believe that if I were to give you information constantly, I could make you a better person .... I really believe the difference between you and that guy in the street is information. That's it. That is the fundamental difference. I think the difference between America and Burundi is information."

Reaching for the Stars

Raised in Ethiopia and Tanzania, the young Noah was exposed early to the problems facing Africa by his father, a former Ethiopian diplomat. Samara began his college education in America, first at East Stroudsburg State College in Pennsylvania, then at Georgetown University where he earned a law degree. His master's degree in Renaissance Reformation History from the University of California at Los Angeles inspired him to seek solutions to the grim conditions in parts of Africa. As he studied Europe's rise from the Dark Ages, Samara wondered how those lessons could be applied to Africa.

He didn't know at the time, but the lessons would be applied through WorldSpace.

WorldSpace was started in 1990 when Samara came up with an idea to launch a satellite that would provide basic radio service across all of Africa. A former attorney with the Washington law firm of Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti, he was just 34 when he decided it was time to act: "I was working for a law firm and one day I said, `I've got to do this. I want to launch a satellite."' From practicing law, he had a background in satellite licensing, first with the Geostar Corp., a satellite manufacturer, and later as an advisor to numerous global telecommunications and broadcasting organizations.

The first WorldSpace satellite, AfriStar, was launched in October 1998. Samara proudly notes: "It works better than we imagined. It works better than our own hype. We wanted to cover Africa, but it spilled over and went all the way to Europe. Now we can reach any African anywhere in the world. There are tons of Africans living in France, London, and all kinds of places that can now hear the voices from their homes." AfriStar is equipped with three transmission beams, each covering 14 million square miles and broadcasting over 50 channels, initially commercial ones.

WorldSpace profits will come from ad revenue and from leasing channels to programmers. AfriStar is signing up new programmers at a rapid pace. Already on board are KayaFM, Bloomberg News Service (which is leasing 23 channels), World Radio Network, and CNN International. Interested parties include music mogul Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. Indeed, the WorldSpace service might be the only entry point that links underserved parts of Africa, Asia and Latin American to the global marketplace.

Samara's idea to bring digital radio to a third-world audience was laughable to many industry insiders. After all, he wanted his satellite to beam a signal directly to portable radios. Samara's dream was ahead of technology. The best satellite systems at the time transmitted their signals to landbased dishes, where the signal was converted to audio and/or visual images.

While many in the industry were laughing at Samara's dream, he was selling the concept to investors. Since WorldSpace is a privately held company, its investors have remained a secret. It is believed, however, that Samara received a considerable amount of capital from international investors, including the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Published reports say he has raised roughly $900 million to finance the company.

With funding in hand, Samara was able to commission Alcatel, a French satellite manufacturing company, to design and build the first WorldSpace satellite. Samara was creative in recruiting several consumer electronics companies to build the radios that would receive WorldSpace's direct signal. WorldSpace interviewed 25 electronics companies, but only a few were chosen. In return, each company would have exclusive manufacturing rights for the first few years. Samara, however, wanted more than just a business deal: "We told them they had to be interested in our mission, both business and humanitarian. We actually dedicated a portion of our channels to support our mission for environmental information, a peace channel, and a health channel. We want it to be an exciting way of delivering critical information that is going to improve the lives of people."

Of the 25 companies, four of the world's leading consumer electronic companies embraced WorldSpace's mission and agreed to manufacture the revolutionary radios: Panasonic, Sanyo, Hitachi, and JVC. The radios feature flat antennas and tiny chipsets that consist of two micro-integrated circuits that process the satellite signal.

A Not So Crazy Idea

Surprisingly, the U.S. government, which has never regarded Africa as a foreign policy priority, supported Samara's satellite plan: "Without the U.S., I don't think it would have been possible to launch such an endeavor, mainly because the U.S. provides a regulatory framework. Although there are aspects of the framework we may think are unfair, at least there is a system in place. There is a rule of law, a process, something that you can resort to. And if that does not work you can appeal it to a higher authority. And if that doesn't work you can appeal again. It gives you a sense of security to do something that is crazy."

Samara has no insecurities about referring to his idea as "crazy," because that is what people said about WorldSpace behind his back. Samara, who speaks with a slight East African accent, reflected back 10 years:

"For a guy to say in 1990, I'm going to launch a satellite,' everybody thought I was crazy. Now here is this guy who wants to launch a satellite over Africa. And guess what? He doesn't want to put a telephone service into Africa; he doesn't even want to put a television set into Africa. This guy wants to broadcast radio! Where is he from? I mean, people did not say that to me directly, but there was that view."

Regardless of what others thought of his idea, Samara had long studied the technology we use to communicate, and he pointed out some basic facts to investors.

"In America, the most videofied society in the world, 100 million people wake up to radio every day," he says. "They drive to radio every day. That is because radio, no matter what, can never become obsolete. You can't take a television in your car, you can't take it in the shower, and you can't work in your office while you are watching television. So I knew that whatever happens with television anywhere in the world, there will always be a place for radio."

Indeed, Samara wants to revolutionize the way people access the existing means of communication.

Reinventing the Radio?

Just when computers and the Internet were revolutionizing the way the industrialized world communicates, Samara wanted to promote the "low tech" radio? Not really. Samara's radios are the most hi-tech radios ever manufactured. They can be linked to PCs and are capable of downloading video and text from anywhere in the world

"If you connect our receiver to your PC, we can deliver Crisis magazine into your PC. We can deliver Hollywood on-line or the University of Maryland," Samara says. "It would be multi-media, just like the Internet." Obviously the possibilities of WorldSpace are endless, given its multimedia capabilities.

All of this technology begs an obvious question: Is the WorldSpace service affordable to the average third-world citizen? WorldSpace has a potential audience of 4.5 billion people. Samara wants to focus attention on 300 million people, initially limiting sales and distribution efforts to areas that can afford the cost of the receivers, markets such as South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal. A similar marketing strategy will be taken for AsiaStar and AmeriStar satellites, both scheduled to be launched above Asia and Latin America later this year.

The cost of the receivers will start at around $200, more than what many citizens earn annually in developing countries. However, by initially focusing on countries with higher per capita incomes and commercial markets, Samara believes the cost will be driven down as demand increases: "We will need to sell 200 million receivers before the price drops. If you remember, compact disc players initially were $1,000, now you can get them free because someone is trying to sell you CDs."

It is conceivable that advertisers and programmers will subsidize the cost of the receivers if audience levels soar as expected.

"I am not distraught that it will take us a longer time to reach everyone," Samara says, "because I know at least we have started the first step toward universal access to people that have hitherto been denied basic information. We have taken those steps that are necessary to ultimately get to those people. It is a journey to reach these people, and we will get to them."

After embarking on a journey ten years ago to launch his first satellite, Samara knows a little about taking a first step to reach one's ultimate goal: "The most important thing is not to achieve your goal, but to do everything that you can today toward that goal. Getting there is far less important than doing everything you can do today."

Now with the AfriStar satellite hovering 22,300 miles above Africa, perhaps we can adequately respond to the urban proverb coined several decades ago by poet Gil Scott-Heron: "The revolution will not be televised." Indeed, we may be listening to it on radio.

Peter Joseph Brown is a freelance writer living in suburban Philadelphia.

Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated May/Jun 2000
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