Subscribers revisit clamour for ‘pay as you view’ as Multichoice slash price in some African countries

Since Tuesday, November 1, customers of pan-African pay television provider, Multichoice, owners of DStv and GoTV, in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi among others, started paying reduced monthly subscription fees on DStv and GOtv bouquets.

This was, according to industry experts, a response to the harsh economic realities sweeping across the continent. Curiously, Nigeria, arguably its biggest market, and South Africa, its home country, were left out.

Rather, some new local channels were added to Nigeria subscribers and several channels previously only accessible to DStv Premium subscribers were opened to lower packages to add bigger content value to cheaper subscription options.

Contrary to the initial defense of Multichoice that it cannot afford to reduce its monthly bouquet fees across Africa due to increasing inflation and exchange rates, the company bowed to pressure and slashed its fees by over 20 per cent.

Investigations revealed that Multichoice was in a hurry to slash the fees, which some critics had described as a Greek gift, because a new pay TV is about to emerge and there are indications the new entrant may take the large chunk of dissatisfied Multichoice customers.

A subscriber, Mr. Ade Adesanya, said since the firm had stoutly rejected introducing a pay as you view mechanism, he was yet to see the value for his monthly subscription.

Despite the current economic recession, he stated that several Nigerians still renew their subscription, but sadly the reward they could get from Multichoice is to use their monies to reward subscribers in other African countries.

“When Multichoice bowed to pressures made by consumers and the CPC recently by introducing a customer care toll-free lines, I saw it as a Greek gift as they were yet to address the most paramount concern of customers, which is the persistent E-16 code that disrupts viewing.

“The most painful part of it is that most of us are being cheated without compensation. I was a recent victim of this. For a week, I was denied watching television because of the E-16 code. When the error was later erased, my subscription was not extended,” he lamented.

Another perturbed subscriber, Ms. Oye Akintayo, Managing Director of Right Touch Fashion, said she has boycotted renewing her subscription to the premium bouquet because the tariff is expensive in Nigeria compared to what subscribers in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Botswana pay.

According to her, asking Nigerians viewers to pay more for few channels and asking their counterparts in those countries to pay less for more is absurd and a way of saying the customers are gullible.

“Nigeria is its biggest market and should be the most favoured or serviced nation. Some of the foreign companies operating in Nigeria have sabotaged our economy. They are attracted by our population and are only after their interests alone. DStv should do more for its Nigerian customers because if we stop viewing their channels, it would spell doom for the company,” she said.

Findings revealed that the company makes an average of about N8 billion from over four million patrons every month in Nigeria and about N80 billion as turnover per year.

A source at Multichoice Nigeria, who claimed anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, disclosed that the company decided to slashed fees in the countries after it observed that about 40 per cent of its subscribers had refused to renew their subscriptions due to economic recession that bites harder, compared to Nigeria, which has been recently rated the biggest economy in the continent.

“The last price hike put subscribers under pressure in those countries and we have lost about 300,000 subscribers in just one year as people could no longer afford the service or no longer saw it as valuable enough. When reviewing our packages and prices in each country, we take into account local dynamics such as inflation, content costs, foreign exchange rates, local taxes and overheads required for each business.

“To compensate our Nigerian viewers, we will introduce more amazing channels to the existing entertaining programmes. We have also embarked on an aggressive marketing and follow up innovation to ensure most of our subscribers do not abandon their bouquets. We call subscribers a few days to the expiration of their subscriptions to remind them about the reasons they should not miss out of the global village,” the source revealed.

Interestingly, the General Manager, Sales and Marketing, Multichoice Nigeria, Martin Maputo, has warned that subscription fees may go up if the foreign exchange (forex) problem facing the country is not addressed.

He spoke in Lagos while unveiling new content upgrade on all DStv bouquets. Maputo said currently, DStv is trying as much as possible to avoid any price increase but instead concentrating on upgrading its contents across all bouquets.

However, he said if government fails to curtail the forex crisis, which has made it more expensive for the company to buy foreign content, especially English premiership among others, it might be forced to consider price increase.

“Most of the content we buy such as EPL and others from abroad are dominated in pounds, dollars. So, we are not only operating in the market but also responding to the market. At this stage, we are trying as much as we can to avoid any price increase, but if there is nothing done to curtail the forex issues, we might be forced to increase (our subscription fees),” he warned.

However, a lawyer, Segun Adejola, stated that it was wrong for an international company to set double standards for its patrons. He said that subscribers should fight for their rights by questioning the decisions of the firm in a petition to regulatory agencies like the CPC and the Federal Ministry of Communication and Technology.

“Sending complaints to the National Assembly had proven to be a waste of time and resources. Similar issues had been discussed on the floor of the assembly but none had yielded any desired result as it appears that gifts exchange hands after a lot of noise had been made by the lawmakers.

“For instance, the House of Representatives had debated on the pay as you view initiative for years and nothing has been done to it and I am not surprised that the company had excluded Nigerians from the beneficiaries of the price slash,” he stated.