DStv Subscribers Plan Boycott Over Price, Other Issues

• DStv Subscribers Plan Boycott Over Price, Other Issues

Subscribers to DStv service in Nigeria have asked Multichoice, owners of DStv and GoTV, to reduce its monthly subscription in the country by 15 per cent as the leading Pay-tv operator has done in many other African countries where it operates.

Some subscribers have also threatened to boycott the company’s services over the subscription conditions.Findings revealed that DStv has added several new channels to lower-tiered bouquets in some countries to boost content offering while also lowering the tariff in the countries.

Countries that benefited from the tariff reduction include: Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Botswana.But in Nigeria, DStv subscribers, said that they do not even have any meaningful free-to-air channels to watch when their subscriptions expire.

Mr. Obinna Aja, a subscriber, alleged that Multichoice, “is allergic to providing good services to its Nigerians subscribers at affordable prices”.He stated that despite the current economic recession, several Nigerians still renew their monthly subscriptions.
Mrs. Tomiwa Odusola, a restaurant owner threatened to lead a peaceful protest to the Lagos headquarters of the company to press home her frustrations with the Pay tv operator.

To her, “The tariff of the bouquet is too expensive, compared to what other subscribers in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Botswana pay. Ali Haruna, industrialist, said, that the company decided to slash fees in the chosen countries after it observed that about 40 per cent of its subscribers had refused to renew their subscriptions due to economic recession.

MultiChoice has however described the allegations as untrue and misleading.Caroline Oghuma, public relations manager, DStv, said that subscription rates across countries are easily verifiable and that all the facts are on the internet for all to see.

While admitting that DStv bouquet subscriptions were slashed in other countries, as reported, she explained that reduction was way below the 20 per cent claimed by the authors of the reports.

On the exclusion of Nigeria from the list of countries affected by the slash, Oghuma said Nigerian DStv subscribers have always paid lower rates than subscribers in the affected countries and, despite the recent reduction, still pay lower.

On the agitation for “pay-as-you-view”, Oghuma said there is no such model in pay-television, blaming the demand on misinformation, which makes the public confuse pay-as-you-view with pay-per-view (PPV).

Recently, she said, the company made available toll-free lines on all the mobile telephone networks in the country to ensure that subscribers can reach its call centres at no cost when they have issues with the service.