Broadcast licence uptake doubles on demand

The Communication Authority of Kenya headquarters at Westlands, Nairobi on December 21, 2020.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

The number of broadcasting licences issued by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) to investors more than doubled to 37 in the three months to September last year, compared to the previous quarter, the highest in at least a year.

The broadcasting services report for the period indicates that the new issuances raised the total number of authorised broadcasting service providers in the country to 684 as at the end of September 2024.

The report further notes that the overall number of broadcasters actively operating at the end of the quarter was 498, comprising 246 television stations and 252 FM radio channels, meaning that 186 licensees had not activated their operations.

During the period, the new permits issued included four for commercial FM radio, three for community FM radio, 12 for free-to-air (FTA) TV broadcasting service, three for public FTA TV, four for public FTA FM and 11 for public FTA commercial FM broadcasting.

“As of September 30, 2024, the total subscriptions to broadcasting services decreased to 6.1 million from 6.4 million reported in the previous quarter, representing a four percent decline,” wrote the CA.

“The subscriptions to digital terrestrial television (DTT) grew by 0.53 percent to 4.5 million, direct-to-home (DTH) decreased by 15.2 percent to 1.6 million, while subscriptions for cable broadcasting services grew by 2.2 percent to 60,894. The DTT population coverage stood at 91.91 percent.”

The regulator attributes the sustained popularity of DTT to the relative affordability of monthly subscription fees compared to cable and DTH, resulting in mass access at the lower market segments.

“Access to television through cable medium remained the least popular with only 0.99 percent of subscriptions being for cable television services, which could be attributed to the low cable footprint due to the high cost of setting up the infrastructure compared to other forms of media,” noted CA.

On broadcast content standards performance, the compliance levels with minimum local content quota decreased from 90 percent to 88.5 percent, while compliance with the programming guidelines for the watershed period, children protection and religious programming guidelines stood at 100 percent.

The overall compliance level with TV broadcasting code marginally increased from 93.1 percent to 94.7 percent.

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