Key NTV, KTN and Citizen TV presenters and hosts are planning to migrate to other platforms as the digital migration stalemate extends.
According to sources close to Jeff Koinange, Churchill and Citizen TV’s Janet Mbugua, the three met some rivals to their current bosses and they might be planning a migration as they depend on shows and so they might not be able to sustain themselves if the stalemate continues.
Churchill (Churchill Live and Churchill Raw), Jeff Koinange (JKL), Janet Mbugua (Citizen TV presenter/host) and Dennis Okari (still confused with no strong brand) met an undisclosed location and voiced their concern with the manner things are moving. They said that they believe that they can still have an impact on platforms like KBC, K24, or Kiss TV as with the digital migration, every station has equal reach.
Jeff Koinange and Churchill makes money per show as they rely on advertising and sponsorship. The 3 shows being off air for so long has hurt their pockets. The two are also worried that colleagues like Larry Madowo who support the rebellion by the owners of the 3 rogue TV stations, don’t see the sense as they are paid a salary and so success, failure or switch-off of their shows don’t matter.
NTV called some of their employees to a meeting, when the stalemate started, and informed them that they can be on salary till the end of the year as Daily Nation can easily sustain the group. It is Citizen TV which suffers the most as it depends on TV revenue a great deal. Nation and Standard generate minimal revenue on TV so they still have their mainstays.
Meanwhile, Communication Authority has ordered the three TV stations to resume broadcast on digital platforms within 7 days from 26th February or risk losing their broadcasting license all together. The CA was evoking the broadcast license clause which obligates any license holder to notify the regulator if it will be off for more than 3 hours.
Most stakeholders believe that the regulator is very lenient on the three TV stations and might just fine them a maximum of 500,000 as witnessed before. That is the cost of a half-page advert on Daily Nation so paying that is like being fined Ksh 10 at a police station.
In a move meant to surprise the industry, the 3 TV stations are now planning to buy a stake in Signet and fight for copyright while holding stake in the already spread out platform. A close to the owners of the three stations indicate that the CR12 revealed yesterday where Africa Digital Network ownership was revealed, was found to be fake.
The 3 TV stations don’t own ADN (Africa or African) and so they want to buy stake in an existing platform.
The government has taken a strong stand against the three TV stations as the President and his family have discovered that K24 has made considerable market gain since the rebellion by the 3 TV stations. This is good to the family and the respective govt officials want this to continue as the President personally gains.
The 3 TV stations are said to have lost more than Ksh 100million since their rebellion started. They lose more than Ksh 5million every single day.
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