Kenya’s Communications Authority in a series of campaigns, alerted consumers in certain areas of Nairobi that analogue broadcasting would be switched off by December 31 2014. This action would also see some other parts of the country stop analogue broadcasting by February 2015, while the rest of the country would go digital by March 2015.
However, three media houses in Kenya have sought a court injunction to halt the Communications Authority’s move for analogue switch-off. The media houses which are, Nation Media Group, Standard Group and Royal Media Services are dissatisfied with the limited time frame given by the Communication Authority to put together necessary infrastructure to facilitate the migration.
Speaking further on this, Paul Muite; Legal representative of the media houses, stated that “one frequency that was allocated to the media houses by CA is not enough to appropriately cover Nairobi and its environs, which requires at least three frequencies”.
Counsel to the Communications Authority, Wambua Kilonzo , however challenged the hearing of the case by a two-bench judge due to the fact a seven-judge bench previously gave a ruling on a getting a deadline for the analogue switch-off deadline.
According to Daily Nation, a Kenyan daily, the Supreme Court judges directed that the application filed by the three media houses against the Communications Authority, the Ministry of Information and the Attorney-General be heard before a seven-judge bench.
The nationwide analogue to digital switch is in line with the International Telecommunication Union’s directive that television stations across Africa should migrate from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television by June this year.
Bolade Popoola contributed to this story.
