Digital Migration in Kenya has by no means been smooth, what with the three largest media houses playing a “who’s is mightier now” with the Communications Authority and the courts. Now it’s reached a point where the same courts ruled that the previous concessions by the Communications Authority come to an end and phase one and two of the analogue switch off go as planned. The analogue 3 are still switched off. What happened is that Communications Authority, after getting renewed power by a Supreme Court ruling that Analogue signals be switched off, and the three media houses given a deadline that they didn’t honour, took matters in their own hands and did the switching off, the next day.
This then meant that the three media houses wouldn’t reach analogue only customers in the areas already switched off, read here to see which these are. The three went on to switch their transmission on the digital platform and have in place a message that the CA switched them off. Anyone would wonder how that message was reaching our TVs. Now moving on to 24th February, word on the street is that there has been a development that could see the three coming back and not at their terms.
Going by tweets on blogger Shitemi Khamadi‘s timeline, the day of them coming back from self-inflicted detention may soon be here as the government and Africa Digital Network is said to have come to an agreement. Shitemi in three tweets said that the three won’t be given a BSD license as they have been requesting and threatening for one and that the government could be reaching a point where they don’t trust the three with a license, and that they can sabotage should they have one. The same is what the three have been saying of the government, that should they run on government owned SIGNET and Chinese firm owned PANG, they could be shut down at will by the government.
Rumor mills are saying that government and ADN have come to some sort of agreement
— shitemi khamadi (@oleshitemi) February 24, 2015
ADN to be carried by signet. It will not be issued a BSD license. Yesterday’s erroneous story by DN about ITU irked government
— shitemi khamadi (@oleshitemi) February 24, 2015
In principle, government is saying it fears ADN can sabotage it if given a BSD license. Let’s wait see it sometime tomorrow they are back
— shitemi khamadi (@oleshitemi) February 24, 2015
It’s a wait and see for who will blink first, looks like it might be the analogue 3, or the government made that happen.
