Radiodiffusion-Télévision ivoirienne (RTI) is the publicly owned radio and television authority of Côte d'Ivoire. It is financed through a combination of television and radio licences, advertisements, and taxes.
History
The RTI Group (Groupe RTI) is an Ivorian public limited company with a capital of six billion CFA francs, created on October 26, 1962. It is a public body for the design of radio and audiovisual content, financed by royalties, advertising and subsidies. of State. Placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Communication, the RTI has a board of directors chaired by Aka Sayé Lazare. Journalist Fausséni Dembélé, known as “Al Séni Dembelé” has been the current managing director since his appointment in February 2019.
Born from the will of the President of the Republic Félix Houphouët-Boigny (1960–1993), who wanted to make it an instrument of development at the service of the populations, the RTI originally broadcast only 5 h 30 min of weekly radio programs. It only had a single 10 kW transmitter installed in Abidjan, in the town of Abobo, and a 47 m2 studio in the town of Plateau, its current headquarters.
It was four years later, on August 4, 1966, that the Maison de la Télévision was inaugurated in Cocody, equipped with two studios of 100m2 and 400m2 and state-of-the-art technical equipment of the time.
The first tests is in 1970, In 1973, television switched to full-color. The effort to cover the territory, undertaken seven years earlier, materialized with the opening of a television news antenna in 1973 in Bouaké, in the center of the country, which was transformed into a regional station in 1980. This coverage of the national territory ends in 1988 with the inauguration of the Dabakala transmitter.
Following the launch of a second television channel, Canal 2, on December 9, 1983, the extant RTI television channel was renamed La Première.