Writes Fred Nzomo.
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A lot has been said about this digital migration exercise ever since it was launched world wide five years ago.In Kenya it was never taken as a serious exercise that will be of benefit to the civilians since many people felt like it was good remaining in the analog era. So before i proceed, what is digital migration? Digital migration is a process by which media companies are expected to switch off their analog signal transmitters after replacing them with digital signal broadcasters . After this, the consumers(TV users) are expected to buy digital decoders commonly known set top boxes to be able to access the television channels. It is known by everyone world wide that the exercise of digital migration was launched five to six years ago and that the global deadline for this exercise was set to be on the 31 st of July 2015.
Since then, the communications commission of Kenya(CCK) announced the deadline for switching off the analogue transmitters in the whole country. According to the CCK,the exercise was supposed to be done in phases. The first phase was Nairobi and its environs then later the whole country. Nairobi never migrated since some fellows named SMG, NMG and RMS kept on running to court to halt the exercise as they were not ready and as they said Kenyans weren't ready as well. what followed were court proceedings that seemed to never come to an end.These 3 media houses won every battle in court thanks to the powerful lawyer Paul Muite who was representing them.
The fight was now left for the 3 media houses against cck and the savior was always the court. As They continued to fight, days were elapsing so fast and global deadline for digital migration was approaching at a faster speed. Shock was awaiting these media giants. Sometimes back these guys had their license taken away from them because of breaching the terms and conditions that should regulate them.Don't forget that they were fined ksh. 500,000/=. Now last week is when hell broke loose.The supreme court judges lead by deputy chief justice Kalpana Rawal on friday 13 last week gave a ruling directing the CCK to return the licences' they had taken away from the 3 media houses. The court further directed the CCK authority to go ahead and execute the switching off of the analog transmitters. That was supposed to be done on friday mid night. By Saturday the 3 media houses were still broadcasting a move that saw the CCK move to their limuru site where their transmitters are located then switched them off. These guys then went ahead and switched their signals completely thus going off air up to date for reasons known by everyone. Its evident they did that to paint the government badly by citing unfair treatment by the CCK. These guys are now crying foul while giving Kenyans the wrong information as to what happened. They are saying that the government is the one that vandalized their equipment in limuru hence the media black out. That is a typical lie.
THE TRUTH IS, THESE 3 MEDIA HOUSES switched themselves off. They have their own interests as business partners. Some of the claims they have is that the government has allocated more frequencies to foreign companies at their expense. These companies are GOTv, Start Times, Zuku among others.I don't know how true is their claims, but the million dollar question is, where were they when these foreign companies were being given almost all the broadcasting frequencies? Its very simple, they were in court doing nothing. Apparently Kenyans have seen the light and know the truth of what transpired to the exit of CITIZEN,NTV and KTN off air. Its not the issue of if Kenyans can afford the decoders or not. That is not important as at now. The most important thing, is moving on with the planned digital migration. Kenyans got nothing to loose, after all, social media is all what they need to have every information at hand. Kenyans have woken up from their slumber and they have known that these 3 media houses are tying to fool them. Go to social media and you'll see how furious Kenyans are with these fellers. Kenyans are tired of being taken for granted by some people who got no interest for them. These media houses claim that they are fighting for the common mwananchi. That is a lie, then main interest is their business empires. And at not point in the history of this country, will we have everyone having everything they need. The digital migration should not be halted because i cant afford the digital decoder, never. Let it be executed i will buy the decoder later. The one thing that almost each and every other Kenyan is saying is that, no one is ready to sympathize with these liars who want to drag us back. Its time to migrate, to go the digital way, and there should be no turning back. And let it be known that this digital migration exercise is not a government project, its not something that is being executed by the Kenyan government, not at all. In fact the government of Kenya has got nothing to do with this. Totally nothing and no interest at all. Digital migration is a global thing and the government is just doing the obvious,supervising its execution. Nothing more.
This is what JUA KALI, a renowned kenyan genge artiste had to say on his facebook page concerning the whole thing. .....The pulling of KTN, NTV, QTV and Citizen TV signals from Pay TV does not make economic sense since the CAK Act makes it compulsory for Pay TV channels to run at least 5 free to air channels on their channels as long as they don't change the content. Thus even adverts on the free to air channels were kept intact. By cutting off all signals the free to air channels have cut off an important source of revenue and disappointing their loyal fans, They should have leased the digital signals and stayed on air. Citizen TV and Radio became number one by simply leasing transmitters from KBC which is still the only station to have transmitters in all parts of Kenya. Even Kenya Airways does not own all their planes as its cheaper to lease them. Anyway it may take over 6 months just to set their digital signals and import and submit their set up boxes for approval by the same CAK they are at war with. At the end of the day, its the advertisers who will force the free to air channels to return their signals to the Pay TV channels or they will move to other local digital channels....
NMG, SMG and RMS stop fooling and cheating Kenyans, lets do digital migration for the sake of kenyans. If its competition then you better up your game. Period.
chonjo
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