Anxiety is growing among staff as the Big Three television stations remain off air for the fourth day running. The reality is beginning to sink in as media houses come to terms with the hard stance taken by the government on digital migration.
Television stations are keeping idle staff and equipment, hoping that the government will climb down to reach a compromise on the directive to switch off analogue broadcasting signals.
Rumours have been filtering out that Nation Media Group, whose two TV stations (NTV and QTV) were affected, has asked its TV staff – including reporters, anchors and editors – to stay away from the office until the matter is resolved. But a senior TV reporter said NTV employees are working as usual.
“There’s nothing like people being sent home. I am told that rumour started on Kiss FM,” said the reporter, who cannot be named because of company policy. “We are working normally. We are attending functions and filing reports to make sure our files are up to date. We are ready to go back to air any time.”
At Royal Media Services, an editor with Citizen TV said they are working but streaming through the online platform. “We anticipate that the standoff could be called off any time,” said the editor. A reporter at KTN said they were working as usual.
President’s call
President Uhuru Kenyatta is said to have intervened in the matter. A person familiar with the matter says the president yesterday called Royal Media Services, and possibly KTN and Nation Media Group, but it is not clear what message he had for them. There has been also behind-the-scenes negotiations and optimists say a deal could be struck anytime.
Bleeding millions
Meanwhile, television stations are hemorrhaging cash. Based the Ksh40 billion annual TV ad spend, each of the four TV stations is losing on average Sh16 million daily in advertising revenues. Of course bigger losers are the Big Three – Citizen, KTN and NTV – with Citizen which takes the lion’s share of ad spend feeling the most painful pinch.
Combined, the four are losing an average of Sh64 million daily, translating to Ksh256 million by the end of today. With such huge losses, there are fears of job losses especially if the stand-off takes too long to resolve. Media houses are holding onto their guns, hoping that the Communication Authority of Kenya will blink first.
The CAK forcibly switched off the analogue signal on Saturday afternoon after the media houses defied its directive to do so my midnight Friday, just hours after the Supreme Court ruling lifted an injunction against switching off analogue signal. Media houses, annoyed by the move, responded in kind by withdrawing their signals from the digital platforms, throwing the country into a television blackout.
The Media Owners Association, though, claims the CAK is responsible for switching them off the digital platform. The country has been left to rely on government-run KBC and K24, owned by President Uhuru’s family, which have limitations on programming and news delivery.
