Kenyans face a tough choice as the country implements digital migration in an acrimonious way, which has seen millions of viewers switched off air over the last week.
It is a tough choice that drastically alters the terrain because viewers will now have to pay monthly for TV news and programming, unlike before. Since the advent of television in Kenya in the early 1960s, majority of Kenyans have consumed and enjoyed free TV.
The Free-to-Air (FTA) TV business model delivers TV programmes to the public at no cost to viewers, relying on advertising revenue to sustain the business. This model has worked well and in favour of majority Kenyans in that they are able to meet their information and entertainment needs absolutely free.
On the other hand, Pay TV has traditionally been a niche premium service targeting those willing and able to pay monthly subscription to access specific premium or niche content. Previously, the two business models co-existed comfortably. But this landscape is now changing.
Today, Pay TV is mass-focused. Courtesy of a poorly managed digital migration process and a regulator, the Communication Authority (CA), whose priority is clearly not free television access, Kenyans are at risk of finding themselves in a largely Pay TV environment where a majority of those who could freely access TV would have to pay for the same.
But how did we get here? With the advent of the digital migration process, naturally, Pay TV service providers saw this as the golden opportunity to lock in new subscribers to their services.
Majority of set-top boxes are Pay TV based. Pay TV service providers are in the business of charging TV viewers to watch their content and this is the reality that is unfolding and will soon shock many Kenyans who cannot afford or do not wish to pay for TV content.
Over the last four years, the Free-to-Air broadcasters have vigorously engaged the regulator – in boardrooms, in hotel conference facilities, through exchange of letters and in courts of law – to be allowed to carry their own content. This request has been dismissed at every turn and, unfortunately, the FTA TV model has been greatly compromised.
Statistics and new research paint a grim picture of Kenyans accustomed to the FTA model being compelled to pay monthly to access TV content.
By denying a licence and forcing the FTA channels to avail their content to Pay TV platforms without due approval, the CA has by design or inadvertently reshaped Kenya’s TV Industry in favour of a Pay TV environment: As at February 2015, only 35 per cent of current TV owners (estimated at 4 million TV sets) had purchased a set-top box.
That would mean 1,400,000 set-top boxes are in the market. The remaining 3.6 million TV sets are blacked-out! And this is where the real tragedy begins to unfold. Many Kenyans still live in abject poverty and struggle to put meals on the table. A casual labourer earns Sh100 and Sh200 a day. How many would afford to pay for TV?
Article 56 of Constitution roots for minority and marginalised groups. It would have been prudent if the CA and Government placed an affirmative action programme to ensure such Kenyans are catered for.
Of the 1.4 million Set-Top Boxes (including Pay TV decoders) 95 per cent (1,330,000) are Pay TV boxes! Only 5 per cent (70,000 boxes) are Universal Free-to-Air boxes that allow one to freely access FTA channels as they have been previously.
And the issue here is not how many FTA channels exist or that are licensed to operate. Even with a thousand FTA channels, if the majority of Set-Top boxes are in the control of Pay TV platforms, then the battle for universal free access to TV is lost.
Why are there only 70,000 Universal Free-to-Air boxes against 1.4 million pay boxes in the market?
Lacing the fears of KTN, NTV, QTV and Citizen TV is the possibility of being switched off air. There are two other licensed Broadcast Signal Distributors - Signet owned KBC or the State and Pan African Network Group (Pang) allegedly owned by the Chinese.
African Digital Network consortium owned by Nation Media, Standard Group and Royal Media Services support digital migration fully, but want to carry their own signals to guard against being switched off when investigative stories unfavourable to the Government, say on extrajudicial killings, opposition rallies or corruption reports are being aired.
Switching off Kenyans from their preferred TV channels is no less than an affront to media freedom and denying masses access to information as enshrined in the Constitution.
Seizing transmission equipment by the CA is tantamount to muzzling the media and controlling content and hence breaches Article 34 of the Constitution, which spells out freedom of and independence of electronic, print and all other form of media. Kenyans, including our leaders have lost popular platforms where they express their views on how they are governed.
