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Television Access And Use In Kenya

Television sets are not ubiquitous in Kenya. Even among the 1152 respondents (58 percent of the sample) who said they had watched television in the last week, about a third said they do not have a TV at home.

Of those who did have a TV at home, nearly all said they receive six channels or fewer. Chart 1 shows how these patterns play out in the whole sample population; a very small minority of all survey respondents (3 percent) can watch more than six channels at home.

Chart 1
                          

Virtually all television owners reported using antennas, either directly on their TV sets or on a roof or outside of a building. TV connections via satellite or cable were extremely rare and reported predominantly by men, young people and urban residents.

TV viewers were asked to list the stations they watch most frequently; four stations emerged as nationally dominant, in descending order of popularity in the survey: Citizen TV, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), Kenya Television Network (KTN) and Nation TV (NTV). The government-owned KBC originally had a monopoly on television, but three major media groups began broadcasting in the 1990s. (First The Standard Group’s KTN, followed by Nation Media Group’s NTV and Royal Media Services’ Citizen, all based in Nairobi).

The four are ranked similarly by Kenyan men and women on a national basis, but preferences differ between older and younger viewers, and between urban and rural viewers (Charts 2 to 4).

Chart 2
               

Chart 3
              

Chart 4
               
In particular, KBC is more popular than Citizen among viewers over 45 and among rural residents. Greater shares of youth than older respondents mentioned watching any station, consistent with the greater use of TV by young people. Although the four main stations can be viewed throughout the country, viewing rates and preferences vary widely across regions (Chart 5).

Chart 5
             

Among those who do not watch TV (a group 65 percent female, 45 percent over 45 and 87 percent rural), most said it was because they do not own a TV, while nearly one quarter pointed to problems with electricity supply (respondents were able to choose more than one reason for not having watched TV in the last year). Fewer than half of all respondents said they get power from the main national electricity grid, and even having a source of electricity at home does not necessarily guarantee a constant, reliable electricity supply (Chart 6). 

Chart 6
                          

Like radio, television is used nearly as frequently for news and information as for any other purpose (such as entertainment). TV was also considered a very important source of information by at least half of viewers for every topic included in the national survey (Chart 7). Viewers overwhelmingly expressed trust in the news and information they get from TV, with fewer than 5 percent saying that TV reports are untrustworthy.

Chart 7
                            

Television is also a far more regular feature of city life: 63 percent of urban Kenyans who watch TV do so on a daily basis, compared to only 25 percent of rural viewers; the figure is 87 percent for the Nairobi region alone.