The Pendulum Of Satellite TV Viewership Swings In Favor Of Space X, Deepening DSTV’s Woes
The Oasis Reporters
June 17, 2024
When Multichoice’s DSTV gripes that business for it in Nigeria is nowhere near being rosy, that would be true. But that would slightly be covering part of the deeper and hidden truth.
One major truth is that the business model for DSTV has been overtaken by events, and has thus crashed.
They tried to raise prices of their subscription rates but a thunderous court order including the reality of the times forced it to back down.
DStv subscribers are now required to pay N29,500 instead of N37,000 for the Premium package, and Compact+ package subscribers can now pay N19,800 instead of the new price of N25,000. With electricity as an endemic problem in Nigeria, how would that help it in the mass market?
DSTV came in decades ago with a gung-ho storm. Satellite TV was in it’s infancy in Nigeria. It was also the golden age of CNN (Cable News Network) and people needed to watch. DSTV colonized it. If you wanted to watch it, only DSTV offered it. No other PayTV option did.
Or is it football?
It was DSTV. Therefore business was good.
But the Internet slid in with a powerful shot and scored a goal from the 18 yard box.
In order to reap the benefits of satellite transmissions, the sagacity of a man like Elon Musk who reads books, according to him, came in to play.
He launched his Space X by utilizing the infrastructure that he met on ground. He used NASA facilities at the Space center to strut his stuff, even far more efficiently than NASA would have done.
Therefore from any remote location whatsoever, you are covered by Space X. You may pay the hefty sum of N 400,000. 00 in Nigeria for the hardware and a monthly subscription fee of about N38,000.00 (thirty eight thousand naira) per month which one subscriber can share with very many users (perhaps more than 300 persons) and behold you are all online. You can browse in unlimited mode.
Just do the sum. If you can browse as much as you want, what TV station on earth can you not get with a click on your mouse?
This is the age of the Internet, for crying out loud!
So where is DSTV in the new equation?
Gone with the wind.
Elon Musk has filled his sky, and the rain will shower. Not just drizzle. There would be a downpour of blessings. He has retired the model that sustained DSTV for decades.
So DSTV can blame the Nigerian economic environment for all it wants. But the reality remains that it’s business model is no longer sustainable.
Buy Elon Musk’s Starlink and every one in the community can not only watch any TV station worldwide, everyone can browse the internet
Greg Abolo
gregabolo@gmail.com
