The Media Owners Association has accused the Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK) of being partisan and favouring Pan African Group (PANG) and Multichoice’s GoTv in the digital migration process.
In a reaction to the revocation of a temporary digital broadcasting licence issued to three media houses allowing them to have their own digital distribution platform, MOA said that the regulator was trying to muzzle the local media houses in order to have them give their content to the two foreign owned companies.
The media representatives of the Standard Group, Nation Media Group and the Royal Media Services questioned the CAK decision, which they termed as harsh and too punitive, further faulting them for the grounds they relied on to arrive at the decision. CAK took the decision to revoke the temporal licence for the media houses due to an advert that they have been carrying.
“We are surprised at the Communication Authority of Kenya decision. We do not think the advert was misleading or offensive in any way,” Mr Wilfred Kiboro, the chairman of Nation Media Group, said. He said that the consortium formed by the three media houses, African Digital Network (ADN) had opted to educate the audience the difference between pay television and free to air TV to prevent them from being duped into buying pay-tv set top boxes.
The media owners maintained that both Star times and GoTv do not have to carry their contents as indicated in a letter dated December 3, 2014 by the regulator that required seeking consent from the content providers to broadcast their programs. “They have not even bothered to ask for permission but they have continued to carry our content. We see impunity being encouraged by the regulator. They removed us from the must carry list and therefore we are not obligated or designated as a must carry. It is ridiculous that they are cancelling what they gave us less than one month ago and this is showing a clear bias.”
He added: “If they had any issue with our advert they should have come to us because they are the referee but not slap us with such administrative action.” ADN says that they have not yet acquired their set top boxes as they are currently being manufactured and thus they could not have brought them to the regulator for type approval.
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