A Diaspora Entrepreneur Who Turned Nostalgia into a Media Business Dies at 54

Feb 28 , 2026. By KETURAH CAMPBELL ( Deputy Editor - in - Chief of Fortune )

Amman Fissehazion liked to say that television was “a bridge with pictures”. In 2008, he and his brothers, Mussie and Noah, joined by Nebiyu Yared, set out to build that bridge from a rented studio in Silver Spring, Maryland.

They called the channel the Ethiopian Broadcasting Service (EBS), put up their own savings, and filled the schedule with chat, music, and nostalgia, targeting Ethiopians scattered across the world as well as those at home. No institutional money backed them, only family resolve.

Operating from suburban Washington D.C. had advantages. Studios, satellite uplinks and editors were easier to hire than in Addis Abeba, and the diaspora supplied presenters such as Helen Mesfin. Early flagship, “The Helen Show”, rejected the stiff and state-style bulletins familiar to Ethiopian viewers and instead served up lifestyle interviews. A 24-hour transmission went out on Nilesat, later on Arabsat, and on the DISH Network, making EBS one of the first African channels on a major US pay-TV platform.

Back then, the office was so cramped that guests waited outside while the single studio reset between segments. Cameras came from eBay, editing machines were hand-built, and schedules were tracked on a whiteboard that soon smudged beyond use. Yet the founders still pushed out fresh content every day. They courted advertisers selling phone cards, restaurants and removal vans to diaspora viewers who rang the switchboard to request old pop songs.

Those calls revealed a hunger for programmes that felt personal. Amman urged hosts to mix Amharic slang with English, to ask about childhood memories and favourite dishes, to treat the screen like a kitchen table.

“We aim at the heart,” he told a colleague, “and the numbers will follow.”

By 2012, EBS had become the most-watched Ethiopian channel abroad, overtaking the state feed. The audience grew quickly. Families in Ethiopia tilted their dishes skywards to catch the talk shows, and expatriates tuned in for a taste of home. Soon, the channel claimed 3.2 million subscribers and annual revenue of 49.2 million dollars, figures once unthinkable for a private Ethiopian broadcaster. EBS also helped normalise the idea that commercial television could thrive alongside the state network.

Amman was born in Addis Abeba in 1972, during Emperor Haile Selassie’s turbulent final years. He attended the elite Sandford International School, then left for Pennsylvania State University, graduating in operations management and marketing. In 1997, he met Makeda Assefa. They married three years later in Los Angeles and raised three children. Corporate training and a settled family life in the United States underpinned his long-distance media foray.

Money was tight at the start. Yonas Kebede remembers that EBS owned “two or three vehicles”. For the nostalgia programme, “Tizitachin Be EBS”, he borrowed one, a battered Volkswagen, to drive around Addis Abeba. Viewers and Amman recommended he continues the show with the Volks.With an understanding that the car was not his Amman stepped in. Days later, he wired 40,000 Br and told him to keep the vehicle. Such gestures earned fierce loyalty. Staff say he paid tuition fees, medical bills and rent when colleagues were in trouble.

That generosity shaped a workforce that learned on the job and stayed. Runners became reporters, and camera operators became directors. Industry awards followed. In 2013, Amman was named “Pioneer Diaspora Business Person of the Year”, a recognition that made him blush but confirmed that audiences wanted the mix of culture and conversation he was selling.

When Ethiopia’s broadcasting rules softened, EBS opened a bureau in Addis Abeba and broadened its offer. Sunday magazine, “Ehudin Be EBS”, late-night chat “Seifu on EBS”, Saturday show “Ke'damen Kese'at”, alongside the initial nostalgia strand. The channel’s upbeat, informal, and commercially funded style altered expectations of what Ethiopian television might be.

Amman’s influence spread beyond his own station. He helped found the Association of Ethiopian Broadcasters and lobbied for the Ethiosat platform, which gathered national channels onto a single satellite and slashed transmission costs.

“The show must go on,” he told wavering partners, a line that doubled as philosophy and prod.

"If he could speak, he would repeat his mantra. The show must go on,” his wife told mourners at his memorial in Addis Abeba. “I'm happy everyone got to meet and know the person I have always known Amman to be.”

His public optimism hid a private fight. Three years ago, doctors in Washington, D.C. diagnosed a serious illness. Weight fell away, but he kept working, recording a message at EBS headquarters beside Yonas and the presenter, the late Asfaw Meshesha. There was still lots to do, he would say, and colleagues were not to dwell on his health. At home, he urged his children to look inward for strength and insisted that faith steadied him.

His brother, Mussie, recalled their ritual farewell, “I love you, bro”, answered even in Amman’s final hours. Colleagues praised a mentor who responded “within minutes” to any crisis. Friends described a person generous with time, money and counsel, who forgave mistakes quickly but demanded focus in return.

Students at Addis Abeba University’s Journalism Department recall him turning up unannounced to critique scripts.

“Institutions are strengthened by investing in people,” he told them.

The phrase became a loose motto in the faculty. It matched his own habits. If a power cut threatened a live show, he fetched generators. If scenery sagged, he pushed it straight.

Setbacks did come. A West Coast bureau never opened, and a bid for a dedicated satellite beam proved too expensive. Amman treated such losses as scheduling glitches. He insisted on moving a programme, finding a sponsor, and trying again tomorrow.

He was still making plans when his health finally failed. Amman died on February 19, 2026, aged 54, after three years of medical treatment.

He is survived by Makeda, their children Emmanuel, Mekdelawit and Selam, and a grandchild, Nova. He also leaves a broadcasting industry changed beyond recognition. When he started, private channels were novelties and the advertising market was tiny. Today, EBS has become a fixture in living rooms, proof that Ethiopian audiences wanted to laugh, remember and argue in their own language.

The Silver Spring basement where it began has long since made way for proper studios, yet the founding impulse of television as a bridge endures. Amman did not invent Ethiopian broadcasting, but he widened its span. He did not vanquish state control, yet he built a parallel stage on which different stories could play. Cameras rolled on the evening of his burial. Somewhere, faint but insistent, seemed to echo the words he left behind, the show must go on.

PUBLISHED ON Feb 28,2026 [ VOL 26 , NO 1348]