Business
Some Cash in as Kenya Switches From Analog to Digital
If Kenya’s analog switch-off was to happen today, a large chunk of Kenya’s TV audience would be wiped out, throwing the advertising business into a tailspin. Although the World TV market plans to complete the transition from analog to digital by June 2015, Kenya has brought this deadline forward to June 2014, resulting in a court dispute between leading broadcasters and the Communications Commission of Kenya.
“An estimated 55 percent of TV audiences will disappear and with it, the advertising business,” said Lenny Ng’ang’a, managing director of Nairobi-based Saracen Media, in an AFKInsider interview. “However, the biggest beneficiary in all this will be the radio where most advertisers will take their money as they seek for alternatives.”
In Kenya it costs approximately $2 million to set up a fully-fledged TV station. This figure includes cost of putting up the broadcast transmission equipment as well as the studios. “When the TV signals move from the analog to digital platform, the number of channels that viewers can access will increase exponentially,” said Ng’ang’a. “There will be new products coming into this market such as video-on-demand, allowing subscribers to pay for them using the mobile money transfer platforms.”
