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Looking for Challengers to Multichoice (DStv, GOtv) in Nigeria

Looking for Challengers to Multichoice (DStv, GOtv) in Nigeria

Many comments on FB and LinkedIn on my piece on Multichoice (DStv, GOTv) and my position that Nigeria should not use Courts to determine the price of an imported product. I have written on this many times: “MultiChoice (DStv, GOtv) was not built with debt. But HiTv and TStv went through life via debts. In the media business, in Nigeria, that is very risky. It is nearly impossible to grow faster than your bank interest rate.” 

Indeed, controlling prices from the Court, while popular, will never improve our market systems. We have enough evidence that  the rascality of the court has cooled investments in the electricity sector. They want you to invest $millions and be paid nothing. So, the implication is that no investor wants to invest because the smart court has priced electricity before it is produced.

Check potable water also; some rates have not changed for years, making investors run away from the opportunities. Push for changes, people will go to court to block them. In one state, the last water rate was updated in 1997!

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Bringing that mindset to TV and shows may not be helpful unless everyone is ready to watch the Ajonkwu festival of Ovim Abia State. That may not be bad except that the show is free! But until we do that, bashing Multichoice without going after the root cause of empowering local companies will not help the outcome, court or no court.

It is a popular thing to kick Multichoice. But that does not make it the right move. Indeed, I have never read of where the activists have gone to court to block increased prices of milk, bread, noodles, yam, etc. These are the essentials we should put our energy into, and fight prices.

As I noted here, the only way to deal with Multichoice is to increase competition, not via the court. The opportunity remains. Yes, while many  hail the Court for going after Multichoice, I want to throw it back to Nigerian governments: you need to build an ecosystem where great digital companies can thrive.

HiTV failed. TStv is struggling. DStv is winning territories. If you look at these companies, you will notice a clear catalytic difference: funding mechanisms. DStv was built by the largest purse in Africa, the unlimited Naspers of South Africa, which has so much money that it could buy all the publicly traded stocks in Nigeria with just 30% of the Group’s market cap. This is a company that battles Facebook and comes out as a winner. MultiChoice, though separated and traded differently now, connects to that heritage of wealth. At any point, Naspers has more cash on its balance sheet than …. (let me not make people feel bad).

Building A MultiChoice (DStv, GOtv) Challenger in Nigeria; HiTv, TStv Weakest Factors

Update: Telecom operators are planning to increase rates to manage the higher costs of delivering services in Nigeria. This goes back to the root cause of most recent price changes: cost of production is rising and companies are adjusting prices accordingly. Possibly, someone will go to court to stop them as was done in the case of DStv!

The Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) also says it is considering varying tariffs to some ‘unfriendly telecommunications states’ in order to accommodate their demands. ALTON is an association of major telecoms operators, including MTN, Glo and Airtel. The Chairman of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo, told journalists on Thursday in Lagos that the high cost of energy and security of telecom workers was hampering its operations.


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24 THOUGHTS ON Looking for Challengers to Multichoice (DStv, GOtv) in Nigeria

  1. It’s a vicious cycle, but without educating the people properly, we might never know how our resistance or cynicism creates unemployment and underdevelopes the land. Just take a cursory look at all the things we have fought to keep the prices same, and see why innovation and investment stalled.

    How has our running of petrol refineries worked? How great was our NITEL until we liberalized the sector? Even the arm owned by NITEL back then, the one they called MTEL, how great was its adventure? The Nigerian Airways we continue to mourn its demise, why is making a come back difficult? If you look at each case, you will discover that it was not only corruption that grounded them, rather they were starved off investment, why? Because it’s only government that could fund such loss making entities, and when the government couldn’t, they collapsed.

    If you have been paying attention, the telecom operators are asking the government to intervene in their case, why? Because expecting them to keep prices same while diesel moved from N250 to N700 would be delusional, but Multichoice seems to be the fall guy.

    Cement is widely available because we haven’t fixed the prices, investment in gas cooled when we fixed the price. Are we still surprised why the power sector is not raking massive investment? What stops private investors from developing and modernizing our rail transportation? Once you understand the relationship between price capping and investment, you will know why we are where we are.

    • Nice submission bro. Few year ago some Nigerian based cable TV companies were fought and their operations hindered because of the issue of monopoly of right to sports content and this was done by a major foreign cable company with the help of some government institutions. 3 or 4 of them went down. Until their is a level playing ground that allows high competition, this kind of price battle will not stop.
      I own a public interest TV channel, our operation was affected since then. Now we are sourcing for investment partners to take our channel into another level.

    • Oga I hear you. Remember that mtn when they launched their service in Nigeria said that it will be impossible to bill subscribers per second until after five years. Golbacom launched their services with per second billing from day one. Within three days mtn that said that it will take them five years to start per second billing moved from per minute to per second billing. Even if Multi choice increases their subscription, why can’t they allow for pay per view. This rip off of Nigerians must stop. Give us pay per view or park and go.

  2. I support the courts. Technology and be affordable. DSTv she review its business mode and to ref lu ect the tealutues in Nigeria. It is not setup to cater to a larger audience. Now it wants to milk the small niche. Nice try. We need innovation in that sector. TSTv is not serious. We are coming.

    • In order for TSTV to be “serious”, they need more money for marketing & obtaining licenses for higher quality shows like sports events which are very expensive. Do you think their current prices will remain the same if/when that happens. Many people are still on DSTV instead of patronising the cheaper TSTV, why? Because they prefer DSTV’s content selection. They’re not daft after all, yet some of them will complain about DTSV’s price. This then means that TSTV won’t get as many customers as is needed to compete very well but in order to do that, they have 2 increase prices

  3. You send me over 120 channels. I hardly view more than 5 every month namely;
    Al-Jazeera 406
    CNN 401
    English Premier League 203
    Discovery 171
    Nat Geo 181

    Sometimes I just scroll through others.
    Why forcing me pay for what I do not view?
    I don’t want to mention the lack of electricity in my location because that is not your business. I burn fuel using my Generator most of the time just to watch my football team.
    Pls let’s be considerate.

    • It’s not their fault. They don’t own most of the content & that’s how the content owners license the content to them. If they let you choose, they won’t make back the money they spent on the ones you didn’t watch so they have to bundle it. In the US, sports channels cost 13% of the fees but made only 3% of the channels due to high viewership. If they remove it, they’ll loose lots of viewers

      Netflix & co have similar issues. You won’t watch everything but that means your subscription fee will only go to those you watch. However, Netflix uses that to license lots of content most of which you’ll never watch. If they focus on the ones u watch, they’ll loose other customers who watch that particular one. Even if those customers are few, by the time you do that for every show that has lower-than-expected views, the number adds up. Not to mention the data you’ll need to watch it. Besides, you’ll never watch them all despite paying the same amount that others who watch more pay.

      The only caveat is that Netflix can tell what people are watching as the internet is a Multitasking system (receiver & sender can communicate). DSTV isn’t, it’s a broadcast system so they can’t afford to tailor each customer’s experience to their taste. Your smart card simply decodes only the channels you’ve paid for despite receiving all their channels. There isn’t enough bandwidth & access points for communication between EACH user’s decoder & their satellites. Internet providers can do that because they have more cell towers placed every few 10s or 100s of kilometers apart, with fibre optic cables underground that have enough bandwidth for that. Yet, we still deal with buffering, data limits etc & a higher cost (add Netflix + data plan from ISPs & see the cost) as opposed to DSTV where there are no data costs or limits. You can leave your TV on, connect & view different content o multiple TVs at the same time (depending on your subscription & decoder) & go to bed. Nothing will happen until your sub ends. You can’t do this on Internet platforms & you know why. Netflix is also in debt of about $15 billion.

      I know I’m digressing but the point is that everything costs something. You want cheap, it’ll cost you some features that make that product or service great. You want better, more quality, more features etc? You have to pay up. Even innovations that can reduce costs will still cost money & require risk taking as it can potentially fail – most startups do fail after all. Risk taking however, can be hindered if the company doesn’t have much profit margins or revenue as it means there’s less money to spare

    • You are absolutely right how can we be paying for what we re not viewing. With the situation of this country. what stop them from making it pay as u view, in some country is pay as u view. why is everything in Nigeria deferent

  4. Nice,honest and very educating writeup,unfortunately those saddled with the authority to make changes will not reason with the writer. But your hit us with the truth ,God bless Nigeria.

  5. Use policies rather than court. Implement pay-per-view as a must for all content companies and watch all the issues get solved.

  6. Why has Dstv refused to introduce Pay as you view just like it does in South Africa. Why is it discriminatory in showing some channels only to South African audience? We seriously need competition for Dstv in Nigeria especially in sports. They believe there’s money in Nigeria and feel at ease to cut our throats in their pricing and activities.

    • License fees. The more geographical area you want to broadcast content to, the more you have to pay the owners of the content. Many Nigerians don’t have the purchasing power of South Africans. Some of those channels are also more popular in SA than in naija, which means they’re more likely to subscribe for it than the average Nigerian. It’s like licensing BB naija to viewers in the US. How many of them will be thrilled to switch to that package or the provider as a whole over the options they already have there, just because of BB Naija?

  7. Why has Dstv refused to introduce Pay as you view just like it does in South Africa. Why is it discriminatory in showing some channels only to South African audience? We seriously need competition for Dstv in Nigeria especially in sports. They believe there’s money in Nigeria and feel at ease to cut our throats in their pricing and activities.

  8. Your opinion/write up doesn’t hold water, at first, when dstv launched it’s services in Nigeria, it was pay as you watch removing your smart card if you’re not watching or don’t feel like,after some years of being bitten by “corruption ‘ bug in Nigeria, they introduced subscription services of whether you watch or not, your subscription still runs. Finally transcends to biannual/yearly increment of subscription fees with No value added to their existing monotonous outdated channels. DSTV should disdain from arbitrarily siphoning money from it’s Nigeria customer’s that they will literally loose in no short time, as technology is making everything globally accessible with little data and satellite from the latest Network television sets. Rejig your management scruples and refrain from being doggie and fishie at the same time.

  9. It’s just poverty rate that is bedeviling us, else what is $20 for tv subscription per month. When poverty rate reduces and people can comfortably pay for services, the investment will naturally flow in as that will make us a viable market.

  10. Its sad to say that Nigerians are not patriotic in nature. The government is trying to curb this foreign company’s excesses in their operation in Nigeria and here are Nigerians defending multichoice. am sure if it was a Nigerian company running the other indigeous companies in another country like south Africa down . south africans would have made sure that they are put out of business. Nigerians are not patriotic.

    • I totally agree with you…. honestly is time we stop subscribing i just wish all Nigerians can dat for one or two months and you imagine even local channels in Nigeria are not even free on air…

  11. I think we now have options and that’s very important. If you don’t like DStv switch to TSTV so they can grow and be able to face the challenges in the industry.

  12. Hope is time to wake up with this foreign investors in Nigeria and our government should do the needful as i prefer pay as you view…. Nigeria is one of the richest black country on earth but why we are where we are is because of the bad leaders we have… what Nigeria can’t do in their country is what they are doing to us is very bad….is time to make the wrong right….

  13. For me, its over two years that I stopped subscribing to DSTV. I change my internet subscription to unlimited and bought an android box connect to my TV to turn it to android TV. Thereby creating pay per view for myself. I only watch what I want to watch anytime any day even any country.

    DSTV have been calling me to know why I have not been subscribing and I told them I am now on WiFi with unlimited internet. The good thing everybody in the connect to the WiFi.

    I was able to create my own competition with DSTV and with other data or internet providers.

  14. For me, its over two years that I stopped subscribing to DSTV. I change my internet subscription to unlimited and bought an android box connect to my TV to turn it to android TV. Thereby creating pay per view for myself. I only watch what I want to watch anytime any day even any country.

    DSTV have been calling me to know why I have not been subscribing and I told them I am now on WiFi with unlimited internet. The good thing is that everybody in the house connect to the WiFi.

    I was able to create my own competition with DSTV and with other data or internet providers

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