Kenya’s court of appeal has given an 8 months extension in digital migration. The new deadline stands at September 30, so all of you who didn’t have the set top box have ample time to get one.
The court also revoked the signal distribution awarded to China’s Pan African Network Group and ordered a fresh tender process.
The three judge bench – composed of Justices Roselyne Nambuye, David Maraga and Daniel Musinga – ordered that the three media houses (Nation Media Group, Royal Media Services and Standard Group) in the suit be issued with a signal distribution license, as the CAK was not properly constituted when it issued the license to PANG.
“The digital migration date is still far ahead as per the set international deadline of June 2015 and it is our view that an additional six months will be adequate for all stake holders to agree on an independent body to issue the digital licenses,” ruled the judges.
The new 8-month window provided by the ruling can be utilized by the government to create more awareness about the migration exercise and increase uptake of Set Top Boxes while vendors of digital broadcast services can also use the opportunity to educate the masses about the various Set Top Boxes (STBs) on offer.
It appears that only 32 percent of Nairobi residents with TV sets have purchased Set Top Boxes (STBs), this is according to a recent research by Ipsos Synovate. The survey, conducted in the first week of March 2014 in Nairobi, the number of households with the boxes in Nairobi is higher than the national average which stands at 29 percent.
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The Ipsos Synovate Kenya Audience Research Foundation (KARF) survey found that most of the STBs were acquired by Kenya’s 8 million TV households in December.
