The success rate of digital migration presently stands at 18 percent, with the greatest number of those using digital television decoders based in Nairobi, a report by Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK) indicates.
This burgeoning number of digital TV consumers comes hardly a year ahead of the June 2015 global digital migration deadline.
According to CAK, towards the end of the first quarter, some 738,300 set-top boxes were sold, for the subscription and free to air decoders.
Digital Kenya, whose task is to supervise digital migration said that the country has no choice but to change from analogue to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting by June 2015.
The digital migration was placed on hold after the Standard Media Group, Royal Media and Nation Media Group went to court to dispute the award of broadcast signal distribution licenses to Panafrican Network Group that operates pay-TV channel Signet, which collaborated with KBC for the additional license.
The court ruled in favor of the three media houses. The three had demanded that licenses be given to them via a consortium, though the CA had appealed at the Supreme Court.
“There are approximately four million TV sets nationwide though the digital switch has largely succeeded in Nairobi,” said CA.
The communications regulator attributed the huge number of digital TV consumers within Nairobi to the proximity to the set-top boxes market adding, “The digital migration process began in phases and Nairobi was the first beneficiary for the digital TV signal, which was rolled out in 2012.”
CA further stated: “Another contributing factor is the large number of set top box sellers within Kenya’s capital Nairobi compared to other areas.”