Nairobi switches to digital TV signal by December 31
The Nairobi region is expected to switch from analogue to digital by December 31, 2012.
What you need to know:
- Information PS Bitange Ndemo has noted any further delay would be very expensive for the government
- The plan to honour a December 31 digital TV switch over in Nairobi region comes just weeks after Dr Ndemo said the Treasury had declined an appeal by his ministry to give subsidies on set-top boxes
- An awareness campaign is ongoing to educate consumers on the importance of migrating to digital from the analogue platform
If you live in Nairobi, you are expected to shift to the digital television platform by the end of this month.
Information PS Bitange Ndemo has noted any further delay would be very expensive for the government.
“The government as well as the other operators has invested heavily on the infrastructure, further delays in the migration would be very costly,” he said.
The plan to honour a December 31 digital TV switch over in Nairobi region comes just weeks after Dr Ndemo said the Treasury had declined an appeal by his ministry to give subsidies on set-top boxes — key equipment in the migration —in order to make them affordable to consumers.
About four million analogue TV sets in the country will have to be plugged to set-top boxes in order to receive the digital signal.
The global deadline for the analogue to digital migration is scheduled for 2015 but the government, determined to have Kenya migrate ahead of the set date backdated the deadline to June this year — only to fail to comply.
The set-top boxes, a basic equipment for the digital migration over are currently retailing at Sh5,000 on average making it hard to switch off the analogue signal even in places already served with the digital signal.
Meanwhile, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) managing director Waithaka Waihenya has said there will be 18 new channels, eight of which will be activated within this month.
“New free-to-air channels will be available on the network’s signet platform,” he said.
An awareness campaign is ongoing to educate consumers on the importance of migrating to digital from the analogue platform.
Switching from analogue to digital will allow broadcasters to offer higher picture quality because a digital signal can be more compressed than the analogue one.
