Nigerian pay television subscribers have been pushing for a pay-as-consume payment model as against the current billing system which most of them consider as a a rip off.
But pay tv platforms, particularly MultiChoice, owners of DStv and GOtv platforms and the biggest pay-television operator, have not done much to effectively the inherent difficulties in implementing the pay as you consume model.
The proposed pay-as-you-consume pricing scheme allows users pay according to their effective resource consumption excluding interference.
The Managing Director of Multichoice Nigeria, John Ugbe, hadon the sidelines of the ongoing Digital Dialogue conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said:
“Pay-as-you-consume is something we may consider, if it is technologically possible and the business model supports it, we will,” he said.
At present, subscribers can suspend their subscriptions twice a year when they are out of town.
In 2017, Caroline Oghuma, head of public relations of Multichoice, said the payment option is not obtainable in TV business.
“Pay TV operation is not like the telecom version where you pay for the amount of airtime you want to use. Pay-as-you-go, as believed by some customers, is not obtainable in the pay TV business,” she had said.
Martin Mabutho, general manager, marketing and sales, MultiChoice Nigeria, had also said: “Pay-per-view is normally used when a special event is being broadcast. I will give you example of the boxing bout of Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor; that we viewed to our subscribers at no additional cost.
“In America where pay-per-view facility is being offered, people paid $100, only for the fight. The next day if you don’t have subscription, you don’t see anything. For that reason, we don’t think it is a viable thing for us to do. We don’t believe that our market and can handle that.”
Companies in the telecommunications sector had argued that it was not possible to operate per-second billing until Globacom changed the trend in 2003.
The Nigerian Communication Week analysis affirms the widespread belief that pay-television services are too expensive, particularly when operators increase prices for their services.
It also added that the call for a consumption rated billing system is made more expedient by the fact that subscribers traditionally watch only 15% or so of the channels available to them so they are paying for a lot of channels they never turn on.
The persistent call for the pay-as-you-consume (PAYC) payment option as against the current monthly plans has not helped matters, it said.
Pay tv platforms, particularly MultiChoice, owners of DStv and GOtv platforms and the biggest pay-television operator in the country have done little to control the narrative.
The operator is yet to convince Nigerians that Pay tv operation is not like the telecom version where you pay for the amount of airtime you want to use.
Another salient proposition is that subscribers can suspend their subscriptions twice a year when they are out of town.
It is importantly important that pay tv operators communicate to Nigerians that pay-as-you-consume which is often confused as “Pay-per-view” (PPV) is currently, is not obtainable in the pay TV business.
PPV is normally used when a special event is being broadcast.
And in all intents and purposes, MultiChoice, is already providing PPV to its subscribers at no additional cost whenever there are special events.
In America where pay-per-view facility is being offered, people pay as much as $100 for a major boxing bout.
Such tariff for PPV in Nigeria can cause a major riot because this market is not mature yet and cannot handle it.
Pay tv operators have also failed to communicate the high cost of acquiring compelling contents; like live coverage of popular sports events.
Content owners, knowing the value of what they have, ask for more money for rights to such any time they want to review the contracts.
And the purchase of the rights are most times in foreign currencies meaning that If any of these markets are affected by foreign exchange volatility, as most likely, it would affect pay tv business.
Pay tv operators deserves the hues and cries for failing to control the narrative of expensive services provisioning.
