Will Citizen TV & Others Buy Ruto Inauguration Feed From Private Contractor? The Truth

Kenyans on Sunday, September 10, expressed their anger after learning that President-elect William Ruto’s team contracted an international company for his inauguration bypassing local media houses.

In a statement, Digital strategist Dennis Itumbi, who is part of the Ruto’s communication team, noted that the contracted company, Live Eye, would set up a channel aimed at broadcasting the historic national event across the continent.

Titled Kenya Presidential Inauguration, the channel will go live on Monday, September 12, in preparation for the event slated to take place on Tuesday, September 13.

The channel will then air for three days before its shutdown on Thursday, September 14.

Speculations became awash that local channels would be locked out of the event and expected to purchase the feed for re-broadcasting from the contracted company, Live Eye.

A highly-placed source, however, confirmed  that the feed will be availed to local broadcasters free of charge.

The source further explained that all journalists from Kenyan news outlets will be allowed into Kasarani Stadium to cover the event for the purpose of their later prime time bulletins.

“We will take the feed. The feed is free. The journalists will attend and record but the feed will not be ours.

“This has happened before, it is not something new. The concern of the media is that there is no quality control from their part,” explained the source.

The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) was yet to respond to our questions regarding the nature of the arrangement by the time of publishing while our calls and text messages to Ruto’s communications organ were hit with silence.

Local media houses expected to cover the event include Citizen TV, NTV, KTN, TV47 and KBC among others.

The DP will be sworn in to become President in an event expected to be graced by 20 Heads of State across Africa and the globe including Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni.

US President Joe Bidden, on Saturday, flagged off a delegation of five to attend the event among them US Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman.