Media Houses Relieved As Digital Migration Is Postponed

Media owners can now sigh in relief as the government is taking a rain check on the dreaded digital migration. After meeting with the big guy, Mr Uhuru, Information Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i agreed to push the migration cut-off date to June next year

This is the third time that moving to the digital platform has been postponed, first it was supposed to be done by December last year,then they changed it to June 2013 which was then postponed to December 2013 and now it has been pushed to June 2014.

According to The Daily Nation, Mr Kiprono Kittony the Media Owners Association (MOA) Chairman was thrilled by the decision and said that:

“The change of dates will allow us to address certain issues the government has not addressed. First of all, as media owners, we have had issues with foreign ownership of signal distributors. This will allow us to address that.

“Secondly, we are not satisfied that there are enough STBs (Set Top Boxes) out there. We don’t want to disenfranchise Kenyans when the deadline arrives in December. If you look at Tanzania for example, they have had a similar narrative, which we are trying to avoid.”