Nairobi News

Citizen TV and Inooro tv are back on air after they were shut down by the government on Tuesday last week.

The two television stations that operate under Royal Media Services (RMS) which is owned by businessman SK Macharia were switched back on at around 4pm on Thursday.

Citizen tv and its vernacular sister station were switched off alongside NTV run by Nation Media Group and KTN News operating under Standard Group Limited but NTV and KTN News were switched back on on Monday, leaving RMS bosses and employees in the dark on when exactly they will be back on the free-to-air and pay-tv platforms.

The government has remained mum on why Macharia’s tv station remained off air as the other two resumed normal transmission after the controversial switch-off of the stations’ transmission equipment located in Limuru by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) accompanied by police officers.

COURT ORDER 

NTV and KTN News resumed normal programming Monday afternoon after CA finally obeyed a court order issued last week on Friday ordering that the stations be allowed back on air even as they counted their losses running into hundreds of millions of shillings.

CITIZEN TV is now BACK ON AIR!
Tune in to your favorite station for normal viewing and catch up with the ongoing #CSVetting pic.twitter.com/ZVt4vqLtnk

— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) February 8, 2018

On Monday, human rights activists were teargassed in Nairobi CBD to bar them from going to Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i’s office to protest the continued media blockade.

CONDEMNED 

The media blackout was also condemned by the UN, the US, European Union, NGOs and International media stations, who faulted the government for defying a court order to restore broadcast.

The four leading private television stations were switched off on January 30 mid-morning by the government to prevent a live broadcast of the “swearing-in” of opposition NASA leader Raila Odinga as the “people’s president” at Uhuru Park, Nairobi.