Television broadcasters have been notified to apply for new licenses, failure to which they risk shutdown.
The Communication Authority issued the directive noting that it is in line with the new laws that came to effect following the expiry of the previous permit regime in June.
“I wish to remind all TV broadcasters that have not applied for licences to do so urgently to avoid running afoul with the law in light of the foregoing expiry of the permit regime in June 2015,” said CA director general Francis Wangusi.
The licences come with strict conditions including programming standards for local content and promotion of equitable coverage of political parties and presidential candidates during elections.
Entities seeking the new permits will also be obliged to provide sign language interpretation and captioning for news, emergencies and events of national importance for persons with disabilities.
Currently, broadcasters are operating with permits from the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology as the CA plans and assign them frequencies.
The new licensing regime allows CA to give any person(s) or company, society, and partnerships registered in Kenya a licence.
However, political parties, movements and human right activists are not eligible for a broadcasting licence.
