China has spent nearly two decades assembling a media empire in Africa. Its broadcasters, newswires and print publications have hired hundreds of journalists, opened dozens of bureaus, built state-of-the-art studios and engaged high-profile local anchors to spread Beijing’s message across the continent. It has one big problem: Few people watch.

Bureaucratic dysfunction, leadership churn and tightening political controls have left China’s African media experiment struggling to find relevance in a region that will be home to more than a quarter of the world’s population by 2050. Africans watch the BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN, but even China’s marquee media brands barely figure in public debate in most countries on the continent. “Audiences are more attuned to news from the West than from China, which generates distrust,” says Confidence MacHarry, an analyst at SBM Intelligence, a political risk consulting firm in Lagos.

The media misfire stands in stark contrast to China’s broader efforts to boost its influence in Africa. The country has expanded its diplomatic footprint, financed infrastructure and cultivated political relationships throughout the region. Polling suggests that work has paid off: A 2025 Afrobarometer survey found 6 in 10 Africans consider China’s economic and political influence positive—higher than their views of the US or the European Union.

Ever since the Communist Party took power in 1949, Beijing has sought to build its brand internationally, sending Xinhua news agency correspondents overseas and beaming what it then called Radio Peking across the world. The soft power drive picked up in the mid-2000s as the government pushed Chinese companies to expand abroad and forged a media presence to match. Today the country spends billions of dollars annually on its global media efforts, the US State Department estimates.

Nairobi has become the focal point of Beijing’s campaign. In 2006, Xinhua shifted its sub-Saharan editorial base from Paris to the Kenyan capital. China Radio International set up shop around the same time. TV broadcaster CGTN has had a production hub there since 2012, the same year China Daily, Beijing’s English-language flagship, began publishing an Africa edition from the city.

But Chinese media has notched only modest viewership gains since 2018 in key markets, according to a study by the journal Online Media and Global Communication. Even CGTN—the best-performing Chinese outlet—is a laggard: Only 6% of viewers in Kenya, 7% in South Africa and 11% in Nigeria said they tuned in at least once a week, while the BBC and CNN both drew in 30% to 40% of viewers in all three markets. China Daily and China Radio International barely registered. “I never watch Chinese media at all, but I watch BBC,” says Davis Moroko, 26, who works in a Nairobi print shop. “I didn’t even know they had a studio here.”

China’s efforts on social media present a similar picture. The 851 videos uploaded to YouTube by CGTN Africa from August through October 2023 averaged fewer than 1,000 views and 20 likes, according to research published by the German Marshall Fund of the US. The clips often hammered Western democracies and multilateral institutions as bad for Africa while pitching Chinese initiatives as a path to prosperity and “freedom” from predatory foreigners.

Constant “good news” starts to feel like propaganda and undercuts a lesson state-backed broadcasters elsewhere have learned: They succeed when they engage in real journalism. Qatar’s Al Jazeera is the obvious example—the network built a global audience by operating more like a newsroom than a government mouthpiece. Turkey has taken a similar tack with TRT World and, more recently, TRT Afrika.

One exception has been StarTimes, a Chinese satellite-TV operator that says it reaches about 10 million users in 37 African countries. While the programming isn’t only Chinese, Beijing’s channels get a slot alongside other domestic and international options. And on some level, China’s media has influence even when its brands aren’t visible: Xinhua offers free syndication to underfunded African newsrooms, and China has extensive programs that bankroll trips, seminars and exchanges for journalists and content creators.

But CGTN’s pan-African operation in Nairobi is more typical. The station originally hired experienced regional journalists, built a staff of more than 100—mostly Kenyans—and hired local anchors for shows such as Africa Live, Global Business Africa and Talk Africa. Staff say CGTN produced original stories that resonated with audiences tired of famine-and-conflict coverage from Western outlets. It was still state broadcasting, with clear lines it wouldn’t cross, but the mix of Africa-based presenters and local reporting seemed to click.

Since 2021, though, Beijing has installed leaders who closely follow guidance from home, spurring many staff to leave—some for Al Jazeera or TRT— say current and former employees, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. In accordance with President Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on the media, editors were told to cover Chinese politics, including lengthy dispatches on legislative meetings or new editions of Xi’s collected speeches. “Most of our young people are pro-democracy” and seek out news that’s honest—and critical, says Cliff Mboya, a research fellow at the University of Johannesburg and a former staffer at the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi. That the Chinese “don’t do that is a negative for them.”

One potential opening for Chinese media: a pullback by other international broadcasters. The BBC World Service has shifted parts of its Africa output away from TV and radio, shuttering some television services focused on the region and pushing more programming into digital-only formats. The US has followed a similar path, with the Trump administration slashing funding for outlets such as Voice of America.

Despite the slow progress—or perhaps because of it—Chinese media appear to have decided they would rather reach African elites than mass audiences. In Nairobi, CGTN anchors have increasingly been asked to host closed-door briefings for Kenyan officials, interviewing Chinese officials who extol the benefits of China’s development model. One CGTN staffer who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly put it bluntly: The target audience is no longer the African public, but the continent’s governments.