Dispatch from Mali: Democracy at Play -- Soccer Coverage and Viewing for All

If there is any other development in Malian TV that parallels that of the feuilletons [soap operas] or rivals it in its viewership, it is sports; particularly soccer or le football.¹ The soccer matches that L'Office de Radio et Télévision Maliens [Office of Radio and Television, or ORTM] transmits are sure crowd pleasers. Whether they draw viewers or not is a superfluous question. Malians hold a strong and enduring passion for soccer that the programmers at ORTM know only too well.

For a program that is not related to daily events such as the news and does not depend on daily showings like the feuilletons, soccer matches fill up a good portion of ORTM's schedule, appearing three out of seven days: Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays. These spots sit on prime days in the Malian social week that allow viewers to watch the soccer matches. Friday is a key Muslim prayer day in Mali. Businesses and shops close at noon for people to go and pray, and often remain closed for the rest of the day. Sunday functions on a similar half-day schedule that Malians adopted from the French during colonialism. Storeowners close their doors at noon in hopes of spending the rest of the day at home. Monday is the beginning of the week, and usually gets lost in a holiday or a random national development day that the government declares. All in all, then, soccer matches are not missed by anyone in Mali, from Bamako, the capital city, to its eight regions and the villages that span out from them.²

Malians' passion for le football and the successful response of the ORTM to transmit soccer matches are evidence of a cooperative effort between the public and the media that appeared slowly with the democratization of TV and other broadcast airwaves in 1983. Programmers at ORTM listen to what the viewers say and want when it comes to their soccer. Papa Oumar Diop, director of the sports desk at ORTM, explains that most "protestations" [complaints] they receive are about the absence of important soccer matches or the time they air.³ The latter of these two complaints flows in mostly from the villages in the Koulikoro region (closest to Bamako). It is here that one sees the democratic spirit of soccer and TV in full bloom.

Figure 1.

Photo of soccer statue: One of the many homage celebrating the game throughout Bamako. Courtesy of author.

Soccer viewing is not simply for the city dwellers or Bamakois who have readied access to electricity to hook up their portable TVs; it is also for the villagers who connect their small black and white boxes to car batteries to receive and view the latest soccer match. Familiar scenes of Bamakois gathering around to watch TV at dusk also appear in the village. Unlike the Bamakois, however, villagers view soccer matches on a time constraint that is not only due to their use of a car battery. A showing that is too early or late in the day would impede their work in the fields. They are unable to watch a soccer match in the afternoon with work to finish, while an evening showing would keep them up too late to go out early into the fields before the morning heat the next day. These time constraints are unknown to Bamakois who live away from the agrarian lifestyle and benefit from half-days and holidays during the week. Airtime, as Diop notes, is the most common complaint he receives from the villagers.⁴ And they have not gone unheard; ORTM responded with an early evening showing that accommodates the villagers' schedule more than the Bamakois'.

The influence of villagers to affect TV programming in Bamako points to a move from the center to the periphery that exemplifies the democratic spirit engendered by the Malians' passion for soccer and ORTM's response to them. Indeed, not only do the ORTM officials listen to their viewers outside of the center, but...