My Beef with YouTube and NTV Uganda

NTV - Turning off Youtube Channels...

Yesterday was a VERY sad day for me, an ardent Youtube user.

Well, as my confides might know, I was living in Uganda from 2004 to 2008. The I realized that unless I was selling matoke, there was no place for a coder like me there. I was always speaking Greek and talking of ‘advanced systems’. So I decided to come back to Kenya.

In 2007, me and some friends in Uganda decided to Start a Youtube Channel and named it Ndazi TV (NTV). This was meant to be a joke-site for lovers of Quarter-Ndazi like me, Danoch, Sibelenje and Cris Kiagiri. All Starehe boys LOVED quarter ndazis.

So, we registered the channel : http://www.youtube.com/ntvuganda

Then come 2008, Kenya’s NTV station started broadcasting in Uganda as NTV Uganda (A TV Station). I sent various proposals their way via email detailing how they could create a station-buzz using technologies like email,  web, social media and SMS. They called me on various talk shows like Money Matters etc.

Little did I know, that NTV would screw me in the rear orifices.

So on 24th July 2009, After I had relocated to Nairobi, I got an email from Robert Samuel Muganga of NTV Uganda. it read:

Hullo Sir;

Iam called Robert Samuel Muganga an IT/ Tech Support Engineer with NTV – U.

I got your address from Rosemary, and yes for some time now we have

perused through the channel on a request from administration.

It appears that due to the changes to the company group policy, all

divisions including NTVU are required to have a web presence with Youtube

only that by the time we checked we already had a presence to which we had

control over the content;

Would you please kindly  relinquish the passwords for this channel. we

would highly appreciate that sir.

Best Regards

Robert Samuel Muganga

IT/ Tech Support Engineer

NTV – Uganda

I was appalled! Now NTV wants to take what was rightfully mine!

I replied apologizing for the name collision stating it was purely coincidental.

So, they did not respond or contact me again, but last week, to my utter HORROR, it appears they had contacted YouTube, who YANKED me off my Ndazi TV network, deleted ALL my content, changed my passwords  and handed the channel over to NTV Station.

Wazi.