Adherence to set broadcast standards by local television stations dropped in the first quarter of the Financial Year 2023/24, a new report by Communication Authority of Kenya says.
- Compliance levels for TV broadcasting decreased marginally from 91.95 per cent to 91.67 per cent
- In Radio broadcasting, the compliance level registered an improvement from 97.1 per cent to 98.3 per cent.
- During the period July to September 2023, the Authority monitored a total of thirty-six (36) TV broadcasting stations and twenty-four (24) FM Radio broadcasting stations for compliance with the set programming standards.
The broadcast content standards are set out in the programming code, and have been broadly characterized as programming guidelines for watershed period, children protection, advertisements, local content, and accessibility for persons with disabilities.
The compliance levels with minimum local content quota increased from 89.4 per cent to 91.7 per cent, while compliance with the programming guidelines for the watershed period and children protection decreased from 98.1 to 97.2 per cent, compared with Quarter 4 of FY 2022/23.
The compliance with religious programming guidelines stood at 88.9 per cent, while that of accessibility to broadcasting services by people with disabilities (PWDs) was at 100 per cent. The overall compliance level with the TV broadcasting code stood at 92.6 per cent among radio stations.
- The compliance levels with programming guidelines for the watershed period increased from 90.5 per cent to 95.8 per cent.
- Children’s programming and good taste and decency stood at 95.5 per cent.
- The overall compliance level with the TV broadcasting code stood at 98.3 per cent.
During the period under review, a total of 15 licenses were issued to broadcasting service providers for radio and television broadcasting services, bringing the total number of licensed broadcasting service providers to 655.
The total number of broadcasters who were operational increased from 100 TV and 186 FM in the year 2019/2020 to 214 TV and 291 FM stations, respectively, at the end of the first quarter, The subscriptions to broadcasting services grew by 125,895 (2.02 per cent) to a total of 6,343,127 subscriptions.
The subscriptions to DTT and DTH grew by 26,138 and 92,275, respectively, and for cable broadcasting services, 7,482. There was no growth in DTT population coverage, which remained at 92.13 per cent.
