Since the three TV stations shut themselves down, they’ve all gone ahead and introduced ‘webcasts’.
NTV started the idea of live streaming news and soon all of them followed.
It may be a small way to keep themselves relevant in these trying times, but the number of those watching online at less than 1000 at any given time. Well, for a station that hits nearly a million viewers, that does not sound very inspiring.
One Kenyan, Patrick Mwiandi, commenting on an NTV post on Facebook broke down the cost of watching news online.
Streaming /watching a 5 minutes clip, takes 40mbs. Streaming/Watching 30 minutes of news will take 200mbs. 200mbs cost 250 bob. One week of news 3 times a day costs 750 bob times 7 days = Ksh 5,250. In one month, an ardent supporter of your actions will incur Ksh 21,000.
Do you think streaming/watching you online makes any economic sense? How many Set Top boxes can be bought if we ignored your senseless actions?
It makes no sense for the three stations to even bother live streaming. They’re not getting the numbers nor the public sympathy. But I understand their situation. If they return their content on air in digital format, Kenyans will buy decoders and by the time theirs arrive in May, there’ll be no one left to sell to.
On the other side if they fail to switch themselves on soon, Kenyans will do just fine with K24 and KBC, and by the time their decoders arrive, there may still be no one left to sell to as people got tired of staying in the dark.
