Flurry of activity over TV switch-off

With just about 72 hours left before the highly anticipated analogue switch-off for Nairobi and its environs, pay-TV firms have intensified their bid to sell decoders.

And the conflict between free-to-air media owners and the Communications Authority of Kenya over an extension of the deadline has escalated.

The deadline had been postponed a number of times as the three largest broadcast media houses (NTV, KTN and Citizen TV)  protested at the manner the process was being carried out.

On Thursday, Media Owners Association chairman Sam Shollei said they will return to court to ask for the transition to be pushed to April 30, adding that there is no hurry as the global switch-off deadline is June 2015.

“We were given very clear guidelines by the Supreme Court on November 26, and if the government remains adamant and switches off our viewers, we will head back to the court for interpretation,” he said.

He also criticised the manner in which set-top boxes were being distributed. “Pay TVs have dominated the market and used their massive income to lock out free-to-air distributors through price wars and allocation of 60 per cent of channels meant for free-to-air content to a Chinese pay-TV firm,” he said.

DIALOGUE

A Supreme Court ruling in September ordered the three to dialogue with the regulator over acquisition of their own licence, which they got on December 10.

But they indicated that they would go back to court seeking time to set up their own infrastructure. The government has, however, ruled out an extension, leading to an all-out marketing war between pay-TV companies characterised by price slashes on decoders and a flooding of Nairobi with marketers.

According to the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology, there are more than 1.5 million set-top boxes, enough for the estimated 1.26 million households in Nairobi.

“We have had some setbacks which occasioned a slow uptake. But the future is now quite bright,” said ICT ministry CS Fred Matiang’i when launching a consumer awareness campaign recently.

However, the Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek) has raised concern over domination of the market by pay-TV firms, which are locking out free-to-air companies through price wars. “Many consumers may be hoodwinked to purchase pay-TV decoders whose prices have been slashed in the last few weeks ... but the devil is in the detail,” said Cofek secretary-general Stephen Mutoro.

“Many pay-TV set-top boxes come with one or two months free subscription, but subscribers will have to pay monthly rates after that,” he added. The cost of a pay-TV decoder has dropped to less than Sh2,000 while free-to-air decoders have largely remained at about Sh4,000.

So far, over 60 vendors of the gadgets have been licensed. Additionally 126 digital TV broadcasting content providers have been temporarily licensed and 26 free-to-air channels are active on the digital platform.

Cofek has also raised concern over charging of consumers to watch free-to-air channels by pay-TV firms, citing infringement of the Constitution.

According to the phased plan, Nairobi, it suburbs and satellite towns will be the first to switch over. All other areas will have migrated by June 30, 2015.