Nation Media Group has denied that NTV was shut down between January 30 and February 9 while responding to Unilever Kenya’s concerns about their adverts that were supposed to run during that period.
Unilever wants a refund of their money paid for the ads which they say did not receive enough visibility due to the media shut down.
Advertising Director, Michael Ngugi in a letter dated February 12 says that there was only ‘a stoppage of live broadcast effected at our broadcast transmitters which only affected viewers using the free to air set up to access TV content.’
But NTV together with the other stations (Citizen TV, KTN, Inooro) shut down by the government were switched off even on Pay Tv carriers; DStv, ZUKU and GoTv.
The stoppage, Mr Ngugi says, did not interfere with the normal operations at NTV.
“This temporary stoppage therefore did not amount to shut down, for all operations have been ongoing at NTV and our audience has been accessing our content mainly through other means such as our YouTube Channel.”
He notes that the viewership was not interrupted hence the ads got as much visibility as they would have should NTV have been on air.
Read: MultiChoice Kenya Announces a 60% Price Drop the DStv Explora – from Sh30,650 to Sh12,500.
The switched off stations reportedly lost close to Sh30 million in advertising revenues per day.
Royal Media Services Chairman S.K Macharia went to court seeking compensation from the state for losses incurred during the aforementioned period, a case he has since dropped.
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