Perceived Influence of Internet Television as an Emerging Technology on Performance of Pay Television Firms in Kenya

Abstract

The study sought to find out the perceived influence of internet TV as an emerging technology and its influence of performance of Pay TV firms in Kenya. The study adopted quantitative data collection method which allowed for numeric analysis of data, structured questionnaires was used as Primary data collection tool and respondents were sampled from pay TV subscribers in Kenya. Performance of pay TV firms is impacted by the high level of customer churn with a large number of subscribers having more than one pay TV decoder or either having a free to air decoder. The major game changer in the pay TV industry in Kenya will be access to exclusive live sports content and news content.Technological improvements and new consumer trends of the late 20th and early 21st century have evolved rapidly; the television firms have passed through extensive transformation. Television (TV) is closely associated with digital exploits. Video content and viewing screens have become inseparable and today’s viewers have a lot of options about how they will view content; they just expect that they can get content anywhere, anytime and on anyscreen’. Thus, the division of content forms and viewership continues, while the types of devices used to view content diversify. Video has also become a social butterfly, attracting new audiences and revenue, and pollinating new platforms as it flies well beyond the living room. There has been an emergence of content outside the traditional pay TV systems. Consumers are now in control they want to dictate the kind of content they watch and on the type of devices they view it from. The onslaught of pay TV cord cutting is being led by younger generation who are more knowledgeable on technology matters. The pay TV incumbents in Kenya currently are not affected by the emergence of internet TV due to the slow and cost of internet acquisition but the disruption will definitely catch up with them and they will have to adapt by improving their content delivery especially sports and come up with internet-based applications or be rendered useless.