Noah Samara, CEO of Washington, D.C.-based WorldSpace Corp., was born in Ethiopia and raised there and in Tanzania, then educated in England and the United States. Now he is returning to his roots -- via satellite.

Since late October, WorldSpace has been operating a direct satellite-to-radio service for Africa, providing some 30 channels of music and information over the company's AfriStar satellite. This is the first such service for Africa, and one of the first ventures anywhere in the emerging field of direct satellite radio.

Space technology will play a crucial role in bringing the information revolution to Africa and other regions of the developing world, in Samara's view. "The main benefit of a satellite is its ability to develop wide-area coverage and therefore conquer difficult terrain and population dispersion," he says.

Samara notes that radio service in many parts of Africa has been limited to two or three stations. "Now people wake up and have 30 stations," he says. Receiving the service requires special radios that pick up the satellite's digital signals. Currently, about 30,000 African consumers have these receivers, which are produced by several companies.

"Now people wake up and have 30 stations."
     

WorldSpace has participated in early sales of the receivers in order to "jump-start" the service, Samara says, but the company's business plan focuses on selling ad spots on its radio programs and leasing satellite capacity. The company also will make some radio content available on a subscription basis, and is developing multimedia programs.

Samara notes there are millions of Africans able to afford consumer products such as radios, TVs, and computers. But communications have been constrained by poor infrastructure -- a problem that WorldSpace can help rectify through satellite broadcasting.

"We are not the final panacea for everything the continent needs," he says. "But we are doing a tremendous amount to get information to people."