DSTV bows to CPC

Nigerians have suddenly discovered the power they can wield if they come together.

Recently the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) ordered MultiChoice Nigeria, owners of Digital Satellite Broadcast Television (DStv) to compensate consumers within 90 days and introduce toll-free lines to them, following confirmation of its investigations on allegations of violations of consumer rights.

The Council also directed DStv to release free-to-air channels to subscribers, even when subscription expires. It also said the South African company should compensate consumers across board for lost viewing time and reasonable equitable spread of popular sports channels, among others.

And voila! Multichoice complied – at least to one of the CPC’s directives. And it is the one that will tickle football lovers the most. The company announced that subscribers on its Compact and Compact plus bouquets will watch the full complement of the English Premier League (EPL) and the Spanish La Liga, as well as the 2016 UEFA Champions Leagues and the upcoming Euro 2016 at no extra cost.

Football fans on Compact and Compact Plus can now tune to two new channels: SuperSport 11 (DStv channel 231) and SuperSport 12 (DStv channel 232), which will be dedicated to the EPL and La Liga. Hitherto, the full football package was available to only DStv Premium subscribers on its SuperSport channels.

Managing Director of Multichoice Nigeria, John Ugbe, said DStv is providing the full football menu for Compact subscribers, because “one of MultiChoice’s key priorities is to put our subscribers’ needs at the heart of everything we do and since these have been tough economic times for everyone, we realised that our subscribers could use some good news.

“We’re excited that we can now deliver the best football action in the world to our Compact subscribers, while ensuring that this development doesn’t negatively impact them financially.”

MultiChoice Nigeria also announced a price slash on Explora and Zapper decoders bundled with the Compact bouquet. The Explora, dish kit with one month Compact subscription, initially sold at N70,000, has been reduced by more than 50 percent  to N30,000; while the DStv Zapper decoder, dish kit plus one month Compact subscription will now be sold at N12,500 as against the previous price of N18,500.

The Director General of CPC, Mrs. Dupe Atoki, expressed optimism that compliance with these reforms would bring about a new dawn for Nigerian consumers, who would henceforth enjoy value for money in their engagement with the company.

She also asked MultiChoice to install a billing system that ensures billing starts with the provision of service. Similarly, the CPC also directed the company to, within 180 days, adopt a “technology that supports suspension of service when subscribers are otherwise unable to enjoy their service on account of being away for a limited period of time”, provided such a request for suspension of service is done for a period of between 7 to 14 days and not more than twice in a year with a 72-hour notice to MultiChoice.

On non-availability of popular channels in certain bouquets, the Council ordered the firm to within 90 days ensure “a reasonably equitable spread of popular sports and other channels hitherto concentrated in its premium bouquet over all available bouquets”.

In order to aid easy and fast access to the company by subscribers who wish to make complaints or enquiries, CPC directed MultiChoice not only to maintain local toll-free telephone access lines for its call centres, but should also ensure the call centres operate for longer hours during public holidays and weekends.