Viewers and fans of NTV Uganda have expressed disappointment over the station’s decision to start live streaming events on its website instead of its YouTube channel as has been the practice.
In a notice on its social media platform, NTV Uganda said the move is intended to provide “uninterrupted streaming experience tailored around improving how our community gets to interact…”
But its viewers swiftly condemned the move arguing that it will lock out those with smart TVs and increase the data costs of accessing their new platform.
“I have been struggling to get NTV on YouTube. I think I’ll wait for the news on Twitter because I watch the news via TV on YouTube,” said a one Patricia Afaaya.
Deogratius Abiima said YouTube had been his choice and can’t see himself buying a decoder to watch NTV.
Martin Mugambi, another user said while the shift may be great, the only problem is that the website stream is extremely inconsistent.
“It’s on and off,” he said.
Mungoma Augustine wrote that it was time for him “to move on.”
Like other media organizations, NTV has struggled to get a grip on the fluid but fast-growing digital space, which has led many people to shift to social media platforms like TikTok as major avenues of geeting news.
The station hopes this move will drive traffic to its website (www.ntv.co.ug) but from the responses, many of its fans believe it has to improve the capacity and mechanics of its site to handle the anticipated surge in traffic.
“Fix your website otherwise it’s hard to stream from it the times I have tried,” said Aloysius Tamale.
