Ecuador: Media Viability in the CORAPE network

Community, and educational media are essential communication and information sources for both rural and urban areas. Now with the coronavirus pandemic, community media outlets have become more important than ever, making their viability crucial.

Guidelines and best practices from Ecuador

This handbook offers guidelines and examples of best practices for community media viability and that go beyond financial sustainability. It is based on a collaboration project with CORAPE, an Ecuadorian media network and partner of DW Akademie. 

The publication looks at four focus areas of media viability: advertising; projects and entrepreneurship; partnerships and alliances; and production and programming. The methodological tools used were self-assessment, external consultation and peer exchanges. 

Eight community media with varied structures and financing sources took part in the project, successfully defining processes and developing the tools that they as well other community media elsewhere can apply. 

The handbook is divided into three sections. The first presents background information, reasons for the project and the methodology used. The second part points to the training procedures and best practices of four of the participating community outlets. The final chapter offers the project's learning outcomes and recommends eight steps and tools for helping community media achieve viability.