Fierce competition for market share among pay TV service providers in Kenya, which has led to massive price cuts on installation and subscription costs, has resulted in more uptake of these services in rural areas.

Kenyan rural areas, which have been traditionally neglected because of low incomes, have seen growth of 20% from 1% in pay TV services over the last two years.

Almost all service providers in the East African nation have opened outlets across the country with agents spread to even rural shopping centres, bringing the service at the doorstep of low income earners.

Kenyans now pay $35 to purchase a decoder down from $200 two years ago with the monthly subscription also dropping to between $23 and $6, something that would be inconceivable just two years ago.

“My bouquet has over 40 channels which include sports, movies, news and cartoon channels for my kids. I can sit in front of the telly the whole day,”said Milton Gitwanja a primary school teacher in Rumuruti a village in Kenya's Rift Valley province.

Gitwanja used to travel over 15 kilometres during weekends to catch local and international football premier league at the nearby shopping centre where he and other fans pay $0.10 for every match.

“I ended up watching over 6 matches in one weekend. I can’t do without watching football, it’s how I unwind, which is why when Pay TV came to our area and with the enticing offers, I had to buy it,” he said.

In Rumuruti village, Kenya's latest entrant in the pay TV services platform, StarTimes headquartered in China, has made successful inroads with three out of four homes that have pay TV having a StarTimes decoder.

The company operates six packages, of which the subscription rates range between $6 and $35 a month.

“It is different from the local terrestrial channels especially on clarity of pictures which is why we prefer it. The terrain in this area is terrible meaning trying to use an aerial to receive local channels signal never works,” said Wycliffe Bosire, a chief in Kisii, South West area of Kenya.

StarTimes has also been replacing decoders that another pay TV service provider was using before it left the Kenyan market under unclear circumstances.

Customers, who had bought the GTV decoders now obsolete, take the decoders to StarTimes offices where they are exchanged with free StarTimes T2 decoder.

However they must pay an upfront two-month subscription fee of between $35 and $60. At the moment, the company boasts over 8 million global subscribers and operates in ten African countries where it has managed to attract more than 1.4 million subscribers.

Kenya has five satellite TV Service providers including DSTV, Star TV, Zuku TV, My TV, and Star Times.

South African based DSTV, which has been in Kenya for the last 15 years leads the market, but has recently been feeling the effect of new entrants forcing it to considerably cut installation and subscription fees.

But competition is set to become even more intensified with the expected migration from analogue to digital broadcasting with the companies already aligning themselves with new and locally appealing programming to attract customers.