It came with a promise to take down DStv and GOtv. But it seems TStv, a satellite TV provider in Nigeria, cannot take care of itself. Premium Times reports that the company could not pay its rent, and has been kicked out! Going against the richest company in continental Africa by market cap, Naspers, and a single company that could buy all the stocks in the Nigerian Stock Exchange with just then-30% of its value in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was boldness.
The West African Business Platform Ltd., a law firm, has taken possession of the Abuja Headquarters office of Telcom Satellite Ltd. Television (TSTV) due to its inability to pay its rent.
The Abuja Headquarters office of the television company is situated at Plot 1191, Jahi District, off Gilmore Construction Company, FCT.
The property was taken over on Tuesday following the judgment entered in favour of the plaintiff by Justice Yusuf Halilu of the FCT High Court in Nov. 2019.
Officers from the Execution Unit of the FCT High Court, including four police officers, were stationed in the premises during the takeover.
The law firm through its principal, Raphael Adakole, had filed the suit in 2018 with No. CV/2739/18 against the television company and its Abuja Managing Director, Bright Echefu
TStv had no chance, but do not blame it for trying. Yes, many of us were worried as Naspers, the then-direct custodian of MultiChoice brands like DStv and Gotv, could outbid even Facebook or Google on things dear to it. It is that liquid with electronic money, not liquid water from my village. With truckloads of cash, DStv was going to win European Football rights bidding provided C. Ronaldo and Lionel Messi continue to earn the budget of Abia State for kicking a round leather around.
The elders will remind you NEVER to fight against your god – and some wiser people will say “choose your fights wisely”. TStv was stubborn and it has paid for it.
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Sure, this is not to say one cannot dream big. But you need to be strategic when dreaming. This is what I do suggest when it comes to dealing with these ICT utilities with unlimited piles of cash – read here in Harvard Business Review.
I titled an article when TStv launched, “TStv’s Goliath Challenge of DStv“. I did note that “it has to plan very well as it takes on the Goliath of pay TV in Africa. Sure, Goliath has been beaten in the past and that should be encouraging for TStv.” Unfortunately, TStv does not have “David” as a second name.
TStv, a new pay TV company, is beginning a journey to challenge the largest company in Africa by market valuation. Naspers which owns MultiChoice operates the DStv brand across sub-Saharan Africa. DStv is a digital satellite TV service which leads its category in the region. It is well funded by South Africa’s Naspers which has a valuation of $100 billion.
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TStv never really had a chance, from the very day it launched, we said it here that there was really nothing much it could do anyway. Those who argued otherwise didn’t understand the market, so they saw it as an opportunity to get one over Multichoice and its constituents, but things don’t work that way.
The most valuable thing in media and entertainment industry is content, pricing is secondary. Why is content most important? Because there are things that can’t be replicated or shared, so it’s either you watch them on a particular channel/platform or you will never watch. So, it came down to who had more of what the audience wanted. Once the key things are owned and cornered, you are only left with crumbs, but premium customers don’t feed on crumbs.
The TStv was set up to fail, and it failed, so nothing surprising; it was the only possible outcome.
The media and entertainment industry here is still at infancy, the market owned by current operators is still small compared to the potential addressable market. But you must create new basis of competition and deliver value at scale, that way you are not focusing on taking away market share from the incumbents, but largely an untapped market.
Francis, a wonderful sage of business. I like reading the sermon on markets from Francis Oguaju
Birds of the same feathers
Really insightful.
As a South African I feel bad about the TSTv, particularly because it was a black initiative, it’s time our successful black billionaires support young and coming entrepreneurs like this, surely guys like Mr Dangote and Mr Motsepe have nothing to loose if they can venture into such businesses
God bless you. You have spoken my mind
Wowwww,I love your mind. This kind of thinking is what Africa needs .
It was Nigerian own& Black man initiative,that needed a support ,so right now is only dstv that provide cable TV service in Africa.And I will tell you for sure that 20 yrs coming,dstv can only cover 30 percent of Africa population.And now the righter have given the world dstv valuation at the tune of 100 billion dollars ,the big boys in USA & Europe will invade the market very soon and give dstv a run for the money
It was corporate governance, sincerity of purpose and clear mission coupled with the key printers lack of integrity that killed TSTV.
It’s was not about DSTV crushing the young player. The key promoter is a lying machine. He never had a strong career path which is one of the key success of entrepreneurships and building great company’s.
The promoter is no doubt an entrepreneur with great ideas but had no business management skills. Identifying ones strength is key to building a strong bridge.
We are here boasting about what dstv stands for in Africa instead of standing in for those who are out for the challenge. Are we moving forward or backward. Dstv is exploiting us in Africa bcos there’s no challenge. South Africa is ruling in Nigeria and we r happy instead of supporting our own creativity.
A small David will rise up some day and dstv will fall like Goliath. Dstv is ruling us blindly bcos of our useless love love for foreign leagues. Dstv has killed our love for our own local leagues, they increase subscription rates wen it suit them by providing irrelevant, old and repetitive programs.
True bro
It’s unfortunate we find ourselves in a Country that it’s leaders only care about who pays most. Nigerians suffer xenophobic attacks, what did our leaders do? We even watched videos of such attacks, yet nothing happened. Floyd’s surfaced video shake the world.
We have a system that don’t really care.
You are talking about TSTv, what about Trend Tv, is it’s operation not suspended? Why? Who was the architect behind it? How many people were made jobless by it?
Remember how Nigerians were charged by MTN? It was GLO that came to our rescue. I vividly remembered how I bought an ordinary MTN SIM card at N18,000. How much is sim card now? Place a call and somehow gets aborted, your N50 is gone .. do you remember this too?
I pray we experience another MTN-GLO business challenge soonest.
God bless Nigeria.
Some senseless beings are happy for the extortion DSTV have put Nigerians into,
Why can’t DSTV operate as pay as you go if really you are a giant.
Stop claiming you are a giant, because you don’t want any competitor around you.
Our fellow Nigerians DSTV only feed 25% of our country, and these 25% are politicians that encourage not to have any competitors
Let reflect our mind to MTN, Sim card was N18000, when Glo appeared price drop, even SIM CARD IS FREE, so Self acclaimed DSTV should stop that. If you are a giant act like one and stop extortion.
It’s really Saddened but I believe TSTV will still bounce back real good because they’re for the masses and common man on the streets compared to foreign exploits ( DSTV)
Fear a man with an idea, he is lethal, ideas don’t stay buried. Expect a better fight.
Do dare is to do. It was a good fight, and far from over.
Great one bro
TStv began by making a simple business development error by starting with the rather expensive business head office in Abuja.
They lack basic intelligence in battle with the open direct confrontation of a giant like Dstv.
They should have started humbly in one of the state capitals like Ibadan or Benin city or Owerri and gain vital subscribers base there and start expanding to other states with cheaper costs of operations.
If they did this simple strategy then Nigerians who are generally known to be financially poor can begin to shift grounds and demand for their services. They will at least hold about 3-5 states well and get the EPA football rights for these areas before confronting the giant dstv headlong. Government support can be won in a subtle way by whoever must bring necessary competition to dstv. It is not by force of confrontation due to dstv antecedents.
Well, I will not agree that it is a total failure for TStv. I am a satellite TV installer and I know many subscribers are switching to TStv. They have interesting channels by the way.
Multichoice has argued that they cannot implement the pay-as-you-go subscription because contents are already created, but TStv operates on that. Does it mean their own contents are created as they’re aired?
So, I feel that with more marketing, they’ll really by a challenge to DSTV and GoTV.
Mr Dominic, I will like to buy Tstv because of the “pay as you go” feature now I am confused of whether to not buy any more , please tell me, are there any “pay as you go decoders” that’s like or better than gotv??