Nigerians groan under Multichoice’s pay tv

Nigerians groan under Multichoice’s pay
tv
on december 09, 2013 at 3:39 am in business ,
finance
bemoan poor quality, high fees and lost signals
By Princewill Ekwujuru
Nigerians who subscribe to pay TV are now at the
receiving end. Most of the time, they say they pay
for services that are not delivered. Severally, the
management of pay TV companies has called press
briefings and customers’ fora to address some of
these biting issues concerning their operations,
particularly, with off time lost signals by
subscribers which lasts for days before signals are
restored.
As of today, subscribers are at a loss as to who
pays for the lost days. Chikaodili Igwe, a United
Kingdom-based Nigerian who came back to the
country recently, was at a Multichoice agent office,
and said that rendering good services to Nigerians
was far from the official policy of the company in
the country. “You will lose the chances of enjoying
what you paid for while Multi-Choice smiles to
Johannesburg, South Africa, with your cash,” he
said. Yusuf Kale, who said he has been a regular
customer of DStv since 2004 noted that at the initial
stage, services of Multichoice to Nigerians were
satisfactory, but that as time went on, it appeared to
lose focus, “perhaps as patronage increased.”
He said like many of his friends, he has started
seeking other cheaper pay TV providers. He
explained that the only thing that still keeps him with
the company is the European League matches, but
confessed that he was prepared to start watching
such games at viewing centres.
“I think DStv is forgetting it is now a competitive
market, although those other pay TV companies are
not as big but Nigerians are beginning to rate them
to be more effective. They even have more
entertaining programmes,” he stated. Jide
Makanjuola, another DStv subscriber, said the cost
of subscribing to the company was equivalent to
financial suicide. Like Kale, he said Nigerians were
becoming more enlightened and that most young
users now prefer viewing sites to recharging their
decoders. “It pays far better to pay a peanut at the
viewing centre and save your money. The man that
owns the viewing centre will make his money but
you that subscribe at home will lose in the end,” he
said.
A subscriber who identified himself as Alhaji Bello
queried the pay TV for being disconnected before
the expiration date. Others also complained of
similar problem but not taking into cognisance the
fact that they did not enjoy the services as they
should due to the fact that weather conditions and
several other factors beyond their control, cut short
the times they enjoyed their subscription.
Other affected subscribers are also complaining
that they are cut off sometimes two to three days
before the expiration date of subscription. “This is
an action the company is not even apologetic
about,” Simon Irete said. “What is annoying to many
is that they are surcharged for late renewal while
lost time is not paid for by the service provider.” A
staff at Multichoice office said that the surcharge is
as a result of a computer programme that the
company has put in place
“For example, where a customer fails to pay
subscription fee on or before due date, it takes
DSTV hours, if not days, to come back to
transmission, but for StarTimes, it is immediate,
even after two weeks off air,” Mr. Obinna
Nwokennaya, a subscriber to both pay TV owners
explained.
The activities of DSTV management bring to mind
the story of MTN when they came into Nigeria.
They told Nigerians that per second billing was not
achievable until after about 10 years, but when Glo
launched the per second billing system, MTN had to
adjust to per second billing, a feat they claimed was
not achievable. Are these South African companies
out to drain Nigerians?” Mrs. Uju Amanjo queried.
Amanjo said that DSTV increases tariff over time.
“Having launched pseudo promo few months ago,
they (DSTV) hit back with a new tariff regime for
premium subscribers.
For three years, I have been DSTV subscriber and
premium subscriber. I have to delay my
subscription this month to show my anger. They
have only added Telemundo and a few channels
that are not viewer-friendly.”
Despite having moved from W4 to W7 as promised
at a forum, subscribers still experience poor picture
quality during and after rainfall, and sometimes still
pictures, even when customer’s subscription is still
running. For the days wasted, who compensates
and who extends the days lost? All these
complaints DSTV management has not been able to
address despite subscribers’ constant complaints
at various customer fora,” she said.
Ms. Juliana Nnamdi, who said her husband is a
yearly subscriber, said that the husband is in love
with the DSTV brand, but is disappointed with the
way he’s been treated by the brand, while pointing
out that sometimes, he is cut off before the
subscription expires.
She said that her husband is considering dropping
the idea of the yearly subscription or rather look for
an alternative. “We have not enjoyed anything from
the DSTV brand since we have been subscribing to
their platform. We hear about all manner of
promotions and wonder how the winners emerge.
The promos look like a ruse.”
The near monopolistic nature of the pay TV market
spearheaded by DSTV has been a thorn in the flesh
of Nigerians, says Mr. Avuru Adunaka, who said that
Nigerians are being milked every day and nothing is
done.
A subscriber who does not want his name in print
lost signal for two weeks, even though apologies
were sent, he was not happy with the situation but
queried whether Multichoice will make refunds for
the weeks lost.
Accusing the Pay TV provider of insensitivity to
consumer complaints and unreasonable deduction
from subscribers, Olu Olajuwon explained how he
was migrated to a platform he did not subscribe for
and yet was made to pay for the service.
When contacted on subscribers’ complaints
regarding the length of the scanning period of the
DSTV decoder, Segun Fayose, Head, Public
Relations, Multichoice Nigeria, said that subscribers
have been advised severally to buy an
Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) to support their
decoder so that when there is power outage or
fluctuation, the decoder will pick up immediately,
“this is the only way subscribers will not lose
important part of a programme.”
On scrambled pictures after or during rain, he said
that the problem is peculiar with the technology
used, but that the company is still working on that.
Speaking about lost days, Fayose advised that the
best way to avoid this situation is for subscribers to
make payment before the expiration date and that
subscribers should put on their decoder before
making payment, as this is the only way not to lose
viewership.
He said that some subscribers remove their
smartcard when they want to go and make
payment, an idea he frowned at.
He that said when payment is made, instead of
calling the customer care, the subscribers should
send an SMS to a code, he advised.
Complaints trailed GOtv, also owned by Multichoice.
The complaints started pouring some months after
it was launched and before Nigerians  hardly
enjoyed its services.
In defense of GOtv, the Public Relations Manager for
GOtv, Efe Obioma, agreed that during the mentioned
days, the company had serious challenge with
transmission glitch, but said: “The loss of some
channels in Lagos has been as a result of conflict in
signal distribution which was caused by third party
interference. We are urgently working on a technical
solution to remedy this problem. Some GOtv
channels are still available; however, it is
dependent on where the subscribers are located.”
Exset, pioneers of TV ecosystems for emerging
markets, revealed that its unique digital broadcast
ecosystem – Digital Monetization System -DMS,
will provide the ideal solution to sub-Saharan Africa
‘s digital broadcasting growth among those who
cannot afford premium subscription services.
While speaking at the Digital Broadcasting Summit
and Expo in Arusha, Tanzania hosted by the
Southern African Broadcasting Association and BSP
Media Group, Andrew Pons, Exset’s Director of
Marketing, said the company will be exploring DMS
and the multi-faceted benefits that it brings to
emerging markets.
“Exset understands that pay-TV needs a new
monetisation model for emerging markets in order
to succeed. That is why it created DMS, a unique
business and technology model that makes pay-TV
self-financing without spending exclusively on
subscriber fees for revenue,” Pons said. According
to him, DMS bridges the gap between technology
supply and value-added service creation,
facilitating digital television platforms that can be
monetised where previously virtually impossible.
He went on to say that this allows subscribers to
benefit from new information and entertainment
services. “Partnering with Exset, monetised digital
switchover will assist in bringing about social
transformation”, he said. By deploying DMS, a very
low subscription model of a few dollars a month can
be charged for the digital television service, with
additional operator income gained through selling
the interactive TV space to governments (for health
and education information dissemination),
magazines, local service providers, teleshopping –
the list goes on.
Rahul Nehra, Global Head of Sales and Marketing at
Exset, said, “There’s a combination of issues in
sub-Saharan Africa countries that have held up the
roll out of digital TV services to vast swathes of the
population. The digital divide is therefore increasing
with governments coming under pressure from a
variety of international bodies to tackle this. The TV
set is the ideal way to allow people to access new,
exciting services at a cost they can afford via digital
broadcast infrastructure that are practical to
deploy.”