Media houses accused of misleading court

Media houses were Tuesday accused of misleading the court in their push to get digital licences.

Lawyer Fred Ngatia, for GoTV, argued that media owners actively participated in meetings that recommended the switch-off date and that it was unfair for them to turn to the court when they had the opportunity to apply for the licences.

“It is regrettable that Nation Media Group, Royal Media Services and Standard Media Group filed a petition in the High Court leading to this appeal on the basis that they were discriminated against when there is evidence that they were given the opportunity which they did not seize,” said Mr Ngatia.

The lawyer told a three-judge bench of the Court of Appeal that the media houses had confused the right to develop content with the right to have a digital licence.

He further said the media houses’ push was contrary to their own agreement with the government.

“Signal distribution and content provision are two distinct issues and in a meeting attended by media representatives, they agreed that content service providers should not assume digital signal distribution due to their interest,” said Mr Ngatia.

The three media houses, however, maintained that the digital licences were not in conformity with the recommendations of the government taskforce.

Lawyer Philip Murgor said the licences issued to the foreign pay TV providers did not comply with a recommendation that they have at least 20 per cent local shareholding.

“The ICT policy recommended that at least 20 per cent of shareholding of licences in digital television broadcast be allocated to Kenyans by the third year after issuance of the licences but this has not been complied with,” said Mr Murgor.

Mr Ngatia said the different meetings of the government taskforce on digital migration were attended by representatives of the media owners, who were in agreement for an early date for migration.

He said the three media houses voluntarily entered into a contract with MultiChoice Africa to carry their content through digital signals and their claim of infringement on their intellectual property rights was unfounded.

On the tender for allocation of digital licences and frequencies, Mr Ngatia submitted that the media houses actively participated and their bid rejected for lack of security.

“They even appealed against the rejection of their bid at the procurement board. After the case was dismissed, they failed to file a review at the High Court as provided by law only to wait for over two years to file a constitutional petition,” said Mr Ngatia.