Stations forcefully switched off
A message scrolls on a television screen in Nakuru on February 14, 2015 after analogue broadcasting was switched off following a migration to digital standoff between leading media house and the Communications Authority. PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH |
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) on Saturday forcefully shut analogue signal for NTV, QTV, KTN and Citizen TV, affecting over 90 per cent of Kenyan viewers.
The Media Owners Association on Friday had defied an order by the Communications Authority to switch off analogue TV broadcasting by midnight.
In a statement signed by chairman Sam Shollei, the association accused the CA of selectively applying a Supreme Court ruling on the dispute.
The CA, it said, had curiously chosen to address itself to only parts of the Supreme Court ruling, while disregarding the interests of more than 90 percent of viewers who depend entirely on free-to-air television.
“We expect the CAK to address itself to the rest of the orders issued by the Supreme Court, specifically the reinstatement of the Self-Provisioning Digital Broadcasting Licence which must equally be communicated to us in writing by the CAK,” Mr Shollei said in the statement.
By reinstating the licence and the frequencies, the Supreme Court orders allowed the three media houses — Nation Media Group, Standard Media Group and Royal Media Services — to migrate to digital broadcasting as self-provisioning signal distributors.
