For DStv, which content name goes by MultiChoice, it’s multi-laments — and about time too! Same goes for Gotv, the “dog” — in marketing parlance — thrown at competition, at the low end of the market, to preserve its premium DStv brand.
DStv/Gotv just announced that it lost 243, 000 subscribers within six months — as at September ending. The response from the seething market has been predictable — good riddance! That’s hardly surprising for DStv/Gotv are not the most popular brands in town!
Now, DStv is an operational monopoly — operational because no law bars competition from giving it a stiff fight for market share. But since the collapse of HiTV, competition has been feeble, if at all. For that, DStv has strutted its near-sole giant market dominator status as some Hercules — with no less giant hubris!
First, its cavalier billing attitude. No matter how clean and faithful your subscriber record and history are, DStv yanks you off, that very second your subscription is off — no story. No empathy. Just grab the money and go — was that why DStv named its low end of the market brand Gotv?
Then, that hubris to just raise subscriptions at whim, thumbing its nose at wailing subscribers! When DStv gets into that mode, no one matters — not the subscribers that sustain it, not the judiciary that tries to adjudicate fair deals for everyone.
DStv would have its way and everyone else can go to hell. No wonder, a piqued subscriber base is telling DStv to go to hell too, in its hour of need!
Though the South African company’s subscriber loss wasn’t limited to Nigeria alone — it also posted a subscriber loss in Zambia, with indifferent growth elsewhere — Nigeria is its biggest market. So, that cut runs deep. Which makes it strange why DStv often takes its Nigerian subscriber base for granted — and in many areas.
First, it rains down product adverts and warns of dire consequences should subscriptions lapse, like some harsh village headmaster. But it seldom does any worthwhile pitch on subscriber appreciation. Besides, on the technical plain, at the slightest hint of rain, its signals vanish!
Then, the very offensive Southern African clannishness! Before the last Olympics, only athletes from that belt were good enough for pre-Olympic promotions. DStv has a penchant for what looks like black-on-black apartheid. Its sports promotional choices almost reflect the notorious xenophobia of post-Apartheid South Africa, against Nigerians especially, even if Nigeria stood firm with South Africa, in its painful years of white minority rule.
Reversed but aggressive inferiority complex? It’s really nauseating!
Still, blame less DStv that often behave like fortune cowboys, with the collusion of their Nigerian partners. Blame more the industry regulators that have been too lazaire-faire about content. It’s time to read the riot act. MultiChoice must stop injuring Nigerian viewing sensibilities, while Nigeria remains its cash cow.
To win back its Nigerian market, DStv has to undergo a vigorous attitudinal change. Right now, the market is not smiling. So, it won’t be a swift paradise regained — if any.
