June 25th TV shutdown: A cautionary tale of digital migration's unfulfilled promises

In mid-2015, Kenya switched from analogue to digital terrestrial television, envisioning improved picture quality, expanded channel selection, efficient spectrum utilisation, and a competitive environment for free-to-air broadcasters.

On paper, it was a policy-maker’s dream — a classic case of technology unlocking public interest benefits. As a policy student at the time, however, I also encountered the thorny debates that lay beneath this technical optimism, so aptly articulated in Joe Ageyo's article, “Why I am worried about Digital Migration in Kenya” The central question revolved around control of the signal.

While the government touted a signal distributor nestled within the state broadcaster KBC as an efficiency measure, private broadcasters raised serious objections about its potential threat to media freedom. They feared that if the government ever deemed independent media inconvenient or threatening, it could silence dissenting voices with the flick of a switch.

Even though Kenya's constitution guaranteed freedom of expression and of the press, it seemed impossible to believe that any government would use technical infrastructure to undermine these principles.

The resulting fight led to the granting of a second signal distribution licence to PANG, as well as limited self-provisioning licences to private broadcasters, allowing them to carry only their channels.

Those fears have now become chillingly concrete.

On June 25, 2025, the Kenyan media industry witnessed the very scenario the private broadcasters had warned against: the regulator ordered a unilateral shutdown of multiple broadcast stations, not through content regulation or court orders, but by cutting them off at the signal distributor level.

This act flew in the face of constitutional protections yet was made possible by the policy architecture that had been built over a decade prior. The promised guardrails to protect media freedom were not enough to prevent the media shutdown, raising pertinent questions about the independence of the Communications Authority and KBC's continued operation of Signet as a state entity rather than an independent, industry-led organisation.

The events of June 25, 2025, are a sobering lesson for the media industry, regulators, and citizens alike: technological change is not value-neutral. The governance frameworks we design matter deeply because they embed power in specific places. And power, once embedded, will always be tempted to serve interests other than the public good.

As we look ahead, and use the courts to embed constitutionalism, we need to rethink the place of KBC in running Signet and revisit the intended purpose of the Communication Authority living to its mandate as a body that is independent.

The last few days have taught us that freedom is not preserved by trusting in good intentions, but by building systems that make abuse of power harder to execute.

Monicah Ndung’u is the Nation Media Group Chief Corporate Affairs and Partnerships Officer