Nigerians pay lower rates for DSTV, Multichoice defend rate

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Pay-TV company MultiChoice Nigeria said yesterday that Nigeria’s rate is lower than what many other African countries pay.



It described as misleading and inaccurate reports accusing it of unfairness to Nigerian subscribers.

The reports purport that MultiChoice effected a 20 per cent slash in DStv subscription in other countries where it operates, leaving out Nigeria and South Africa.

A statement by DStv spokesperson Caroline Oghuma said subscription rates across countries were easily veritable.

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

On the exclusion of Nigeria from the list of countries affected by the slash, Oghuma said Nigerian DStv subscribers have been paying lower rates than subscribers in the affected countries in spite of the recent reduction.

“For two years, prices were not increased in Nigeria until April, 2015. Even when they were increased, they remained substantially lower than in other countries. MultiChoice made a decision to absorb costs on behalf of the Nigerian subscriber because the company recognises that the country is passing through a difficult economic phase,” she explained.

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).

Pay-per-view, she explained, is a model used in the telecast of one-off, usually, high-ticket events in sports and entertainment. She said the pay-per-view requires a subscriber to have an active subscription on top of which an amount is paid for the specific event the subscriber desires to watch on pay-per-view.

“A good example of this was last year’s world boxing title bout between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. The two-hour fight was exclusively on pay-per-view in the United States, where boxing fans paid $99.5 to watch the fight in addition to having an active subscription. In Nigeria, boxing fans watched it on DStv’s SuperSport as part of their Premium bouquet. Pay-per-view is considerably more expensive and is for one-off events,” she said.

She said, the company made available toll-free lines on all the mobile telephone networks in the country to ensure that subscribers could reach its call centres at no cost to resolve issues.

The operating hours at its call centres, she further said, was extended to 8am to 9pm daily, including weekends and public holidays.

In addition, Oghuma said, MultiChoice is the first pay-TV service provider to allow customers to switch off their accounts for seven days twice a year when they are not at home. The company also announced the Nigerian Television International (NTAi) channel as the Free-to-Air channel for subscribers when their subscription expires.

“These initiatives received a nod of approval from the Consumer Protection Council (CPC)” she said.