The Consumer Federation of Kenya (COFEK), has accused the Chinese pay TV provider, StarTimes, of hijacking a Kenya Broadcsting Corporation (KBC) signal to transmit the World Cup currently going on in Brazil.
The action followed a cessation of the opening match of the competition between Brazil and Croatia last Thursday, in which
KBC subsequently directed its viewers to access the World Cup through other digital or analogue channels.
COFEK alleged that StarTimes broadcast of the Brazil-Croatia match, continued, prompting it into alleging foul play.
“The ICT geniuses that are Chinese managed to beat KBC at its own game after devising a way of picking the analogue signal and passing it off as if it was a digital signal.
“Yet KBC had already blocked them on DDT (digital) platform,” COFEK alleged on its website.
COFEK further alleged that it is has seen a letter from KBC that initially stopped StarTimes from broadcasting the World Cup, adding that this could provoke another court battle with the Chinese digital broadcaster.
COFEK is already in court with StarTimes to force the Chinese pay-TV provider to compensate subscribers for the loss of free-to-air channels on the service.
In March, a Kenyan court halted pay-TV companies from airing the country’s free-to-air channels, saying the firms had not sought approvals from the channel owners.
COFEK’s latest battle with StarTimes started hours before kickoff of the opening game of the World Cup.
In a separate public announcement, COFEK alleged that StarTimes has no rights to broadcast the tournament in Kenya, as these are said to be reserved by KBC and MultiChoice’s DStv.
COFEK on its website also posted a StarTimes advertisement seemingly showing StarTimes selling cheaper decoders bundled with World Cup packages.
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