The Nation Media Group, the Standard Group and Royal Media Services have welcomed a move by the Communications Authority of Kenya to lift a ban on the suspension of the self-provisioning licence for Africa Digital Network, a consortium they co-own.

The authority has given the consortium seven days to effect four conditions in exchange for the suspended licence. One condition is that they each have to pay a penalty of Ksh500,000 ($5,494) for the misleading advertisement they carried.

The advert warned TV viewers not to purchase the set-top boxes offered by pay Tv StarTimes and GOtv allegedly because the two did not have the media houses’ permission to carry their free-to-air content.

“We need to look into the repercussions of the given conditions, there is enough time and we will in due course respond,” said Linus Kaikai, the acting managing director in charge of broadcasting at NMG.

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The media houses are conditioned to commit not to use their media platforms for selective and misleading advertisements including refusal to carry advertisement on digital migration, commit not to engage in anti-competitive behaviour and respect the laws and regulations governing competition in the ICT sector and to note and comply with the requirement for type-approval of all electronic equipment.

“Upon receipt of an appeal from Africa Digital Network to reinstate their self-provisioning licence, the authority’s board of directors has held deliberations on the matter and have agreed that the authority shall lift the suspension and resume the processing of the self-provisioning licence only after the consortium meets four conditions within seven (7) calendar days with effect from today, February 6, 2015,” said the authority in a statement issued on Friday.

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According to Mr Kaikai, the advertisement on set-top boxes was bound to a court decision that was yet to be made. The three media houses last week filed a case under a certificate of urgency before High Court judge Wilfred Mabeya, seeking to lift the CAK’s orders that barred them from running the advertisement.

CAK has meanwhile summoned the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and K24 for having migrated back to analogue platform after an announcement that they had switched to the digital platform.