Media owners get reprieve in signal distribution row
Information, Communication and Technology Cabinet secretary Fred Matiang’i speaks during a breakfast meeting with industry players at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi June 6, 2013. The meeting was organised by the CCK. Photo/Salaton Njau
What you need to know:
Cabinet secretary for Information, Communication and Technology Fred Matiang’i said the tender would be tailored for local investors who missed out when the other licences were issued, one to a Chinese company and the other to the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.
The government will float a tender for the third digital signal distributor licence to accommodate local investors, ending a stalemate between the State and the Media Owners Association.
Cabinet secretary for Information, Communication and Technology Fred Matiang’i said the tender would be tailored for local investors who missed out when the other licences were issued, one to a Chinese company and the other to the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.
“The government is going to issue a third licence. The tender will be specifically for local investors,” Dr Matiang’i said, adding that the process would be transparent and within the law.
The fallout over the digital signal distribution had led some media owners to freeze content from the Pan African Network Group (PANG).
This, the government said, was impacting negatively on digital migration. The Media Owners Association (MOA) welcomed the move to issue the third licence, but said it should be done competitively and transparently.
“We are ready to go for another competitive process and to put our bids so that we can move forward,” said MOA chairman Kiprono Kittony.
In 2011, CCK sparked uproar from media owners with its decision to award Kenya’s second digital signal distribution licence to PANG, a Chinese company. The other licence had been awarded to Signet, a subsidiary of KBC.
Dr Matiang’i also directed permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo and Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) director-general Francis Wangusi to form a five-member committee, with members from the broadcasting industry, to address challenges raised by MOA, including the fees proposed by the two signal distributors.
MOA said the proposed Sh500,000 per month to carry third party content was too high. Digital broadcasting technology will free spectrum for use in other activities such as voice and data communication, tele-medicine and tele-education.
It is also expected to reduce the capital expenditure needed to start a television station because signal distributors will invest in the broadcasting infrastructure.
A key challenge to the migration is the cost of set-top boxes, which at between Sh1,999 and Sh7,000, is beyond the reach of the majority poor.
It is estimated that more than 90 per cent of Nairobi’s one million households cannot afford the boxes. The government in December said TV owners would get a subsidy on set-top boxes to be financed through the Universal Service Fund to be set up next month as was done in South Africa.
Telecommunication operators, broadcasters and Internet Service Providers are expected to start paying 0.5 per cent of their total revenue to the fund, raising an estimated Sh1 billion annually.
South Africa, which has set this month as the digital migration deadline, is subsidising the cost of set top boxes to make them affordable to poor segments of the population.
It is, however, facing a challenge establishing the number eligible for the subsidy targeting 450,000 households. Kenya intends to establish the number of households with analogue TV sets using the Household Survey gathered with the 2009 census.
