- Information not for public consumption – Spokesperson
ABIOLA ODUTOLA & OLUKEMI ADEBOYE
An investigation conducted by The Point has revealed that the subscriber base of Multichoice Nigeria Limited, owners of DSTV and GoTV, may be depleting fast.
According to findings, out of about four million customers of Multichoice (DSTV and GoTV), about 600,000 people have reportedly not renewed their subscription as at September 2015. This development is coming after subscribers have complained of exploitation, poor content/quality of service and customer relations.
Some of the subscribers, who spoke to The Point, disclosed that they had stopped their subscriptions due to the reasons listed above. For instance, Mr. Tolulope Omole, one of the four million subscribers of the company, alleged that providing good services for Nigerian consumers was alien to Multichoice.
To the Lagos-based public relations manager, the company is only interested in ripping off Nigerians without value for hard-earned money. “The company failed to clear the E-16 (error code) from my screen one week after I had renewed my subscription. The most painful thing is that it refused to deduct the one week delay from my account as my subscription elapsed three weeks later,” he complained.
Omole is only one of the hundreds of thousands of the Multichoice subscribers that are not happy with the operator of the pay TV service. Mrs Ada Ojukwu, another subscriber based in Enugu, has refused to renew the subscription of her Compact bouquet. For her, the tariff of the bouquet is outrageous compared to what is obtainable with other operators in the market, and compared with South Africa, the home of DSTV.
“The charges are increased almost every quarter and there is no added value to the content. The company has made so much from Nigeria as the sole operator for years and it is not too much if we ask for pay-as-you-go,” she said. Just like Omole and Ojukwu, Alhaji Tajudeen Suleiman, a DSTV customer, based in Borno State, is bitter about the poor quality of service and customer service delivery of the pay TV.
According to him, the service was practically shut down last year during the peak of the terrorism crisis in the country and the company failed to compensate the affected customers.
“I am not blaming the company for the mishap but I expected the customer care agents to be polite when I called demanding for compensation but to my dismay, the lady told me that there was nothing they could do about it,” he explained.
DROP IN SUBSCRIBER BASE
Out of about four million customers of Multichoice (DSTV and GoTV), about 600,000 people have allegedly not renewed their subscription as at September 2015. The Point also found that the company makes an average of about N6 billion every month in Nigeria and about N72 billion as turnover per year.
A source close to the company told The Point that the slide in subscriber base was a major concern to the management of the company, adding that the officials were working round the clock to address the situation.
“That is why the company has intensified a follow up innovation by calling subscribers a few days to the expiration of their subscriptions to remind them about the reasons they should not miss out of Multichoice’s amazing offers,” the source disclosed.
CHARGES IN OTHER CLIMES
The Point’s findings revealed that
For the concluding part of this story and others, grab your copy of The Point from your nearest vendor