The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) has waived the quarterly media subscription fees until October 2020. Media enterprises are required to pay quarterly subscription fees to fulfill compliance requirements.
The decision to implement the waiver was reached at during a Special Council Meeting on Friday 5th June, 2020 where the governing body of the MCK reviewed the regulator’s COVID-19 mitigation measures for the media sector and approving the waiver affecting the last quarter of the financial year 2019/20 (April – June 2020) and the first quarter of the financial year 2020/21 (July – September 2020).
Since the proclamation of COVID-19 as a pandemic disease and the issuance of guidelines under the Public Health Act, by the Ministry of Health, the media sector has been adversely affected by the slowdown in economic activity and the resultant shrinking and in some cases drying up of advertising revenues. The waiver of the subscription fees amounts to KES 10 million in value for the said period and is intended to help lighten the financial burden on media houses.
The MCK has in the last three months implemented a raft of measures to cushion the sector, including the provision of health reporting grants to journalists, direct support to media associations & support groups and the provision of the historic KES 100 million grant to community media.
