It Was an Offense To Watch TV at Home Without KBC Permit

Did you know there was a period in Kenya in the early 90’s when you could go to jail for running a radio station in the country without the permission of KBC?

It gets interesting because if you bought your own radio and happened to lose it, you had to equally inform KBC that you had lost your radio.

To show how far we have come in the industry, if you lost your radio, you had to notify KBC that your gadget that you bought using your own money had been misplaced.

Buying your television set also did not mean that you could now go back to your house and start watching your favourite program as you still had to go to KBC, notify them that you had bought a tv set so that you could start watching. Powerful chiefs back then could walk into your house unannounced and demand license failure to which you ended up in court for breaking the law.

The law has quickly changed from this early 90’s law to the mandate of licensing being the sole responsibility of the Communications Authority. A television license in the country now costs around Kes 200,000 per month.

Kenyans can currently enjoy free-to-air digital television content in the country without having to worry about getting licenses from the national broadcaster.