Digital switch-off leaves 1.3m homes in TV blackout

Corporate News

Mr Albert Kamunde (left), the chairperson of the task force reviewing broadcasting regulations 2010, with ICT secretary Fred Matiang’i during a stakeholders forum at the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi on June 17, 2015. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU 

By OKUTTAH MARK, mokuttah@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• Only 2.2 million households had acquired the set-top boxes out of the 3.5 million households estimated to own television sets.
• Low income households say they cannot afford high cost of the free to air decoders.

More than 1.3 million Kenyan households remained in television blackout as the global analogue switch-off deadline passed at midnight, driving home the reality of what has in recent months appeared to be merely a power fight between media owners and the government. 

Broadcasting industry regulator the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) on Wednesday announced that only 2.2 million households had acquired the set-top boxes — gadgets that convert analogue television signals to digital — out of the 3.5 million households estimated to own television sets.

“Slightly more than 1.1 million households are yet to buy the set top boxes,” the CA director-general Francis Wangusi told the Business Daily on the sidelines of on Wednesday’s global analogue switch-off media briefing.

Mr Wangusi attributed the huge number of people who remain in television oblivion to poor distribution of the set-top boxes across the country, especially in remote rural areas.

That assessment contradicted the authority’s position earlier in the year that Kenya was ready to make the digital transition.

The availability and affordability of the set-top boxes was a core part of the media owners’ request for more time to migrate — a request the CA and Information ministry vehemently opposed.

Mr Wangusi’s latest position is also contrary to the reality on the ground showing the high cost of set-top boxes as the main obstacle to many households making the transition.  

The Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek) on Wednesday dismissed Mr Wangusi’s explanation of the slow uptake, saying the CA chief executive’s mishandling of the migration and failure by the government to adopt globally accepted practices had left consumers, especially of the free-to-air television, in a fix.

Mr Wangusi, however, insisted Kenya has an estimated 3.2 million set-top boxes imported by 79 licensed vendors and dismissed claims that a shortage of the gadgets and high retail prices are to blame for the slow uptake.

Pay TV providers are selling multi-channel decoders for between Sh1,999 and Sh2,500 while free-to-air set-top boxes cost between Sh3,300 to Sh6,500.

Pay TV subscribers, however, have to pay monthly fees of between Sh499 and Sh8,200 which Cofek says is not sustainable for low-income earners.

Many countries around the world, including the United States and South Africa, recognised the cost of set-top boxes as a major obstacle to the migration of poor households to digital TV and offered them a subsidy to help them acquire the gadgets.

READ: South Africa to give TV viewers free set top boxes

Kenya has not offered low-income households any such subsidies. 

“As a country we can claim that we have migrated from analogue to digital, but there are still fundamental issues that need to be addressed,” said Cofek secretary-general Stephen Mutoro.