10 lies being told about digital migration

1. That the Africa Digital Network (ADN) Consortium comprising The Standard Group, The Nation Media Group and Royal Media Services are opposed to Digital Migration.
   
   FACT: The three media players have always acknowledged the inevitability of Digital Migration and indeed fully support the migration as best practice in broadcasting. What we have consistently opposed is the Communication Authority’s (and its predecessor CCK’s) unfair handling of the process, which has been orchestrated to favour specific interests and in total disregard of the existing local industry stakeholders.

 

2. That we never applied to be licensed as Broadcast Signal Distributors (BSDs) and have only been seeking to delay the digital migration process:

 

FACT: Members of the consortium sought to be licensed as far back as 2011 and did participate in the tender process.  Our bid was dismissed on a frivolous technicality – A point that even the Supreme Court in its 29th September 2014 ruling noted.  From the onset we were clear that we needed to participate in the process and that we ought to be allowed to continue carrying our respective channels on our own independent digital infrastructure.

 

3. That we ourselves switched off our own transmission of KTN, NTV, QTV and Citizen TV.

 

• On Saturday 14th February, at around 1.00pm, The Communication Authority accompanied by armed police and broke into our premises, forcibly switched off our transmission and carted away our  equipment.

 

4. That the African Digital Network consortium of Standard Group, Nation Media Group and Royal Media Services is not registered.

 

FACT: Africa Digital Network is a duly registered company.  It is this same company that the Communications Authority has officially corresponded and engaged with, and issued a self-provisioning license to.

 

5. THAT The Standard Group, The Nation Media Group and Royal Media Services had all the time to prepare for the digital migration and to prepare and roll out Infrastructure for digital migration.

 

• We have spent the past four years fighting to get a fair hearing and to be licensed to carry our own content. It was only towards the end of last year, 28th November 2014 that we  were granted a self-provisioning license.  Have finally been licensed it was only logical to expect that we be given time to roll out our infrastructure. Whereas the other players have taken over THREE YEARS rolling out, we only asked for THREE MONTHS to put our infrastructure in place. This was to ensure that our infrastructure was up well-within the June 2015 deadline.

 

6. That the 3 media houses are motivated by greed and afraid of competition in the new digital environment:

 

87952. :  Competition is a reality in the media industry and indeed any business enterprise. We are fierce competitors amongst ourselves and welcome any new entrants in the digital TV space. The only thing we have persistently resisted is the CA’s unfair handling of the process and seeming bias that has tilted the playing field in favour of certain players –largely Pay TV providers, to the detriment of Kenyans who have previously accessed TV services free of charge.

 

7. That we carried misleading advertisements on set top boxes hence the cancellation of our self-provisioning license by the CA:

 

8. FACT: In a letter dated 12th November 2014, the CA officially communicated conditions for Pay TVs to carry FTA content under the Must Carry rule. Key amongst these was the requirement that the Pay TV providers must obtain the authorization of the content owners before picking their FTA channels.  Our advertisement sought to communicate the fact that Startimes and GoTV had not obtained authorization to air our content and were doing so illegally without an agreement with us. Further, they have actively used our content to market their set-top boxes without our consent.  The CA inexplicably cancelled our license on the basis of this communication. 

 

9. That there are enough set top boxes in the market:

 

87952. : Kenya has slightly over 4 million TVs. Independent research suggests that there are only 500,000 STBs in the market.. According CA there are 1.2million set boxes in Kenya. Even on this official CA number, this is  barely a quarter of the number of analog TV sets in the country. 

 

10. That the regulator has not favored a Pay TV model and that there are enough FTA set top boxes in the country;

 

87952. : By current independent estimates, there are only about 50,000 – 80,000 Free-To-Air STBS The majority of the boxes that have been pushed to the public are Pay-TV set-top boxes. The fundamental right of Kenyans to enjoy free access to TV has been compromised, whether by design or inadvertently through a reckless approach to the migration process.  Digital migration was never meant to translate to a significant no. of Kenyans now having to pay monthly subscriptions to access TV content that they hitherto accessed freely.

 

11. That Kenya will be left behind if we do not rush to move onto the digital platform. FACT: Only three African countries have made the move so far. Further, ADN requested for time only up to April, which would still be two months clear of the June deadline.