Over two million households could be switched off as digital TV move upheld

By JACOB NG’ETICH

NAIROBI, KENYA: A gloomy Christmas awaits Nairobi residents following a court order that has allowed the Communication Communications of Kenya (CCK) to shut down analogue television transmissions.

In the High Court sitting in Nairobi yesterday, Justice David Majanja dismissed a petition by Kenya’s three leading media houses — Standard Group, Nation Media Group and Royal Media Services — to have the digital migration postponed until certain critical issues spelt out in the petition are resolved.

He dismissed the case and as a consequence digital migration takes effect immediately.

Yesterday, the thre petitioners said in a statement: “In compliance with that judgement, we are left with no option but to go off-air. We have instructed our lawyers to appeal against the High Court decision in the Court of Appeal. At the same time, we are pursuing other avenues to resolve the issue so that you can continue watching your favourite television station. We hope to be back on air as soon as possible.”

The switchover, expected anytime now, will shut down television boxes in over two million households in Nairobi.

The digital TV migration triggered a legal battle between media houses and CCK, with the commission insisting it would execute the move in Nairobi, then move to other parts of the country. According to the CCK schedule unveiled in August, the analogue signal in other towns will be switched off in stages and the entire country will have migrated to the digital platform by June 14, next year.

This would be a year earlier than the global deadline of June 17, 2015.

Pay TV firms as well as independent distributors of free-to-air Set Top Boxes (STBs) have been angling for a boom in business that the switch-off is expected to bring.

The migration process has been dogged by controversies and postponed severally due to a low level of preparedness among crucial players as well as claims of limited consumer awareness.

This, however, did not take place due to a legal case filed at the High Court where the court stopped the switch-off process on grounds it may have denied a number of Kenyans access to crucial information given the elections that were about to take place in March, this year. While appearing in court earlier on, Muite said the CCK lawyers had written to media houses on their plan to switch off analogue broadcasting. The Attorney General, Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology, Signet Kenya Limited, Star Times and all other respondents in the case objected to the petitioners’ application to have the case heard before a three-judge bench.

Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) Secretary General Stephen Mutoro said whereas they supported the roll out of the digital migration, they were against the switch off of television sets because consumers were not prepared.

“We are not opposed to its roll out but what we are saying is that the switch-off is an event but the migration is a process. We do not understand why the government is so fast in wanting to switch its people off,” said Mutoro.

According to a Digital Migration Survey Report by Cofek, half of Nairobi residents will lose viewership if the move is implemented.

“Close to half of Nairobi’s two million households which own television sets are yet to acquire set top boxes to access digital TV signals,” read part of the report.

The report noted that those who own ordinary TVs should thus acquire STBs to access the digital signals and the cost of an STB ranges from Sh4,000 to Sh16,000 while the Integrated Television Sets with in-built DVB-T2 tuners cost Sh35,000 and above.

FESTIVE SEASON

Therefore, Nairobi residents will be required to spend between Sh8 billion and Sh32 billion or be left with nothing to watch during the festive season.

During the court proceedings, CCK Director Francis Wangusi in his replying affidavit said a migration task force report recommended that the migration be undertaken in three phases.

“First there will be the digital switch on, then the simulcast period and finally the analogue switch-off,” read the affidavit.

CCK was against the suspension of the Nairobi switch-off arguing: “The switch-off on December 13 only affects Nairobi and not the entire country.”

However, Media Owners Association Chairman Kiprono Kittony said the switch-off would affect many because of lack of preparedness on the part of the Government to inform Kenyans about digital migration.

“The Government seems to have taken a position in this matter without wanting to interrogate the effects that will come with the act. The distribution of the boxes is still very low,” said Kittony.

He said there was also the contentious issue of the local industry being left out of the deal. Mutoro said the government should either give tax holidays so that the price of the set boxes come down or instead give out a loan through avenues like M-Pesa and allow Kenyans to repay them in about six months.

“The Government should in the meantime engage Kenyans on information, education and communication to ensure that they understand the entire process,” said Mutoro.

In the digital migration, most of the current analogue television sets will be able to receive digital terrestrial television (DTT) using a set top box. The TVs must have audio and video inputs (A/V), to ensure that the set top box can be plugged in. The sets must not necessarily be high definition (HD), LCD or Plasma to receive DTT.

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