Comments on: TV’s big overhaul

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:18:06 +0000

I would love for DSTV to have a bit of competition, but 1 or 2 points: DSTV, you got to give the people to right to choose which channels they can view, I don’t watch most of the channels you provide but I’m forced to pay extra money every month in order to view the channels that I actually do want. For this reason, I’ll look into the others and if any of them over comedy central, I’m switching for sure. But the last point I want to make, I know its not legal, but you can get a unlimited broadband for less than R500 a month, hook it up to a torrent side and just download whatever you want, comedy central included.

By: tdp

tdp — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:10:13 +0000

One thing that needs to be made clear is that each pay-TV service will have their own smart card, set-top box (decoder) and satellite LNB. There will be no sharing of services. So , if you want to subscribe to all 3 you will need 3 X set-top boxes, smartcards and satellite dishes. It’s going to have to be a compelling proposition for anyone to switch from Multichoice.
With respect to content – anything that Multichoice is showing now has been tied up for 3-5 years in terms of their content agreements with the likes of Discovery, BBC, NatGeo etc. The new entrants will not be able to use DSTV content unless they sign reseller type agreements – and that isn’t competition.
Lastly – Multichoice has several hundred staff to manage their services. ODM and Super5Media have less than 40 each. How do they expect to compete in terms of service levels – or will everything be outsourced?

By: nicolascallegari

nicolascallegari — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:10:45 +0000

Competition in the pay TV arena is great. The down side is that Multichopice has a monopoly on a lot of content (especially series and sport) that many people enjoy watching and will miss if they move provider.

I highly doubt that you’re going to be able to subscribe to ODM, Super 5 and DSTV and only pay for the channels that you want to watch.

Already, DSTV has you by the balls and forces you to pay over R500 a month (excl. that ridiculous PVR/HD-TV access fee) for over 80 channels, 60 of which you probably never watch. Such a waste of money, but you’ve got no other option unless you rely on pirated media from the Internet.

Unless you’re willing to shell out a LOT of money (and subscribe to all 3 providers), or unless the content on ODM and Super 5 is compelling enough to make you cancel your DSTV subscription, it’s not going to work.

Same with the telecoms industry. Look at Neotel. Entered the market with lots of fanfare, but their prices are way too high and their services are too limited to make Telkom subscribers switch. There’s still no viable competition in the fixed-line space.

It’ll be interesting to see if ODM and Super 5 will duplicate content and channels form DSTV becuase THEN the pay-TV arena will get a lot more interesting.